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9 



A MEMOIR 



SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. 



'L±^ 



A MEMOIR 



OF 



SIR PHILIP SIDNEY 



BY 



H. R; FOX BOUKNE 




LONDON : 
CHAPMAN AND HALL, 193, PICCADILLY. 

1862. 



[The Right of Tramlation is reserved.] 



DA 3^8 



LOKDOX : 
BPADBURY AND EVAKS. PaJNTERS, WHITEKKIABS. 



PREFACE. 



Amois^g the common praises of Sir Philip Sidney were 
interspersed stray records of fact by many of the 
friends who survived him. One, probably Edmund 
Mohneux, writing his contribution to Holhnshed's 
Chronicles, when intelligence of the hero's death arrived, 
turned aside to recal a few prominent events in his life. 
Another, Thomas Lant, proud to call himself " a servant 
to the said honourable knight/' desiring to transform into 
a lasting honour the pageant of a day, spent a year in 
preparing an elaborate pictorial account of The Pro- 
cession at the Obsequies of Sir Philip Sidney, Knight, 
Of his work a copy — I beheve, unique — is lodged in 
the Library of the British Museum, Contemporary 
with it, but lost to us, was Sidney, or Baripenthes ; 
briefly shadowing out the rare and never-ending Lauds 
of that most Honourable and Praiseworthy Sir Philip 
Sidney, Knight (London, 1586, 4to), by Sir William 
Herbert. That is not the only missing biography. 
About the year 1600, Sir James Perrot, son of the 
more famous Sir John Perrot, penned The History of 
the Noble Birth, Education, and Singular Good Parts 
of Sir Philip Sidney, of which the manuscript, never 
printed, though much admired by those who saw it, 



IV I'RF.FArF,. 



cannot now be found. A tliird memoir has been more 
fortunate. The Life of the Renowned Sir Philip Sid- 
ney, by his kinsman and constant friend Fulke Greville, 
Lord Brooke, was published in 1652 (12mo, pp. 247), 
and again at the private press of Sir Egerton Brjdges, 
and with some notes by that able antiquary, in 181G 
{Lee Priory, two vols. 8vo, pp. 75 and 106). Greville's 
work, read in connection with many fragments of bio- 
graphy scattered through the histories of the period, 
was, for many years, the chief authority respecting 
Sidney's life. Writing with a friend's knowledge of 
details, and in honest admiration of a career which he 
bravely set himself to imitate, he gave admirable account 
of many episodes in Sidney's history shared by himself, 
and exquisite sketches of many features in Sidney's cha- 
racter, as he was able to read it. But, writing with an 
old man's indistinctness of memory, and regardless of 
chronological order or technical precision, he fell into 
much inaccuracy, misleading to later biographers. "It is 
to be wished," remarked Anthony a "Wood, at the close 
of the seventeenth century, "that Sir Philip Sidney's life 
might be written by some judicious hand, and that the 
imperfect essay of Lord Brooke might be supplied." 

Wood himself essayed a little in his sketch of Sidney, 
included in the Athencs Oa^onienses, which appeared in 
1691. Much more was done by Arthur ColHns, who, 
in 1745, issued the Letters and Memorials of State 
written and collected by Sir Henry Sidney, the famous 
Sir Philip Sidney, and his brother Sir Robert Sidney. 
. . . . Also Memoirs- of the Lives and Actions of the 
Sidneys (two volumes, folio, pp. 1313). Searching 



PREFACE. 



zealously among the family archives at Penshurst, the 
manuscripts in the British Museum and other literary 
storehouses, Collins provided valuable material for an 
undertaking of Sidney's life. Moreover, his prefatory 
account of the chief members of the Sidney family and 
its branches, contained a useful epitome of Phihp's per- 
sonal story, although the antiquary, brief by design, and 
not caring to view with microscopic eye this part of his 
subject, repeated many old blunders, and added some 
new ones, where his own collection might have set him 
right. He was far more moderate and precise, how- 
ever, than Doctor Thomas Zouch, Dean of York, whose 
Memoirs of the Life and Writings of Sir Philip 
Sidney appeared in 1808 (4 to, pp. 369). 

Approaching his subject with honest purpose, and 
handling it as skilfully as he could, Zouch failed to 
produce a trustworthy book. He was too ready to 
adopt as facts the vague traditions with which he met, 
and the random conclusions arrived at by himself While 
dihgently hunting for new matter, also, and finding 
some which was very important, he was often careless 
in putting it to use. One curious illustration of his in- 
accuracy, both of fact and of surmise, is in his quotation, 
from Ben Jonson s poems, of an epigram " To Mrs. 
Philip Sidney,'' with a statement that it was presented 
by the poet to Sir Francis Walsingham's daughter soon 
after her marriage with Sir Philip Sidnej^ Honest Ben 
would never have addressed the w4fe of a Knight as 
"Mrs."; and certainly he could not have done so at the 
time in question, he being but ten or eleven years old, 
and not yet even a bricklayer's assistant, much less a 



VI PREFACE. 

courtly poet. I imagine that tlie real heroine of the 
epigram was Mistress Philippa Sidney, Sir PhiHp's niece, 
and daughter of Ben Jonson's patron Robert, second 
Earl of Leicester ; but assuredly it was not addressed 
to Lady Frances Sidney. 

One of Zouch's errors, most common of all among 
reckless readers of old papers, was especially unfortu- 
nate. He failed to notice that, in all the official docu- 
ments, and in most of the private records of England, 
prior to 1752, the commencement of the year was 
reckoned, not from the 1st of January, but from the 
25th of March, and that on the Continent the same 
rule applied before 1582. Hence, for nearly three 
months in each year, Zouch's chronology is hopelessly 
confused. Sidney's mission of condolence to the 
Emperor Rodolph, on the death of his father, for in- 
stance, is stated to have been in February, 1576, 
whereas Rodolph was not an orphan until the October 
of that year. Throughout the volume occur numerous 
errors of the same sort, all the more likely to deceive 
because in many of them there is not the same trans- 
parent absurdity. Except in one or two cases, I have 
not thought it worth while in my notes to point out 
Zouch's errors : but the aid which I have received 
from his researches has been carefully acknowledged. 

Of Hubert Languet's ninety-six letters to Sidney, pub- 
lished in Edinburgh -by Lord Hailes, in 1776 (8vo, pp. 
289), Zouch made some good use. Since his time, how- 
ever, they have acquired much new interest, consequent 
on the discover}', by the Reverend Steuart A. Pears, 
of sixteen of Sidney's replies. Reading the two sets ot 



PREFACE. Vll 



letters conjointly, we can obtain far clearer insight into 
the movements and the characters of both writers than 
was possible to any one in Zouch's day. The Corres- 
pondence of Sir Fliilip Sidnei/ with Hubert Languet : 
now first collected, and translated from the Latin, with 
Notes and a Memoir of Sidjieij, was compiled by Mr. 
Pears in 1845 (8vo, Memoir, pp. 74 ; Latin letters, pp. 
28) ; and next year three of the epistles were included 
in Doctor Robinson's collection of Zurich Letters issued 
by the Parker Society. To both gentlemen I am in- 
debted, not only for the Latin letters, but also for the 
scholarly translations which, wherever they could help 
me, I have freely used in preparing my own more col- 
loquial rendering. 

Mr. Gray's Memoir (pp. b6), prefatory to his edition 
of Sidney's Miscellaneous Works, which appeared in 
1829, is mainly an epitome of Zouch's book. His 
volume, however, has been helpful to me, altliough, in 
respect of the few letters first published by him, I have 
generally, for greater accuracy, and in correction of 
some errors into which he has slipped, chosen to con- 
sult the original documents. 

To Mr. Motley, the latest traveller, albeit but inci- 
dentally, over the ground of Sidney biography, my 
thanks are also due. In his careful and minute expo- 
sition of the war in the Low Countries, containing the 
most exciting episode in Sir Philip Sidney's life, he has 
anticipated much of the material that I had collected 
before reading his interesting volumes on The United 
Netherlands^ and has also supplied me with some 
information which, without his help, I might not have 



Vlll PREFACE. 



possessed. His work has led me, — not, I confess, with- 
out some regret, — to treat less fully than I had intended 
of the great events preceding and surrounding the 
battle of Zutphen. I cannot, in all cases, accept his 
estimate of those events ; but it would have been against 
my purpose, in writing this volume, either to have 
paused to controvert the judgments, irrelevant to my 
immediate theme, from which I dissent, or to have 
related — save in the briefest summar^^, where it was 
needful to the completeness of my own story — what 
has substantially been so well told elsewhere. 

To other books, by authors dead and living, — 
especially to Nichols's entertaining collection of papers 
illustrating the Elizabethan Progresses and Pageants ; 
to Wood's several works upon Oxford Antiquities and 
Biography ; to the AthencB Cantahrigienses, now being 
prepared by the Messrs. Cooper, worthy followers, for 
their own University, in the track marked out by Wood ; 
and to Mr. Bruce's gathering qI Leicester Correspondence, 
printed for the Camden Society ; — my debts, as they 
have been incurred, have been specified in footnotes. 

I have also been particular in detailing the sources 
from which I have drawn fresh material for this Memoir 
of Sir Philip Sidney. Chief of these sources is the 
invaluable collection of documents, public and private, 
treasured in the State Paper Office. From that 
storehouse — hitherto unexplored, I believe, by any 
searcher for information about Sidney's life — I have 
been fortunate in obtaining many letters and papers 
of considerable interest, as giving additional knowledge 
of his career and character ; while many others have 



PREFACE. IX 



afforded corroboration of matters already partially 
known, or explanation of subjects till now mysterious. 
The manuscript collections in the British Museum, 
though often visited by others, have also supplied me 
with a few important details not before detected ; and 
out of local histories and books on other themes, I have 
been able to extract some frao;ments of intelHo-ence 
new as regards their connection with Sidney's history. 

By a collation of printed and unprinted records I 
have succeeded in fixing, within a month or two, the 
time of Sidney^s entrance at Oxford, placing it a year 
earher than the date commonly given ; and into the 
history of his college years some fresh insight has been 
obtained from the State Paper Office. Correspondence 
between Sir Henry Sidney and Sir William Cecil shows 
us how highly Philip w^as esteemed even in his boy- 
hood ; and a letter, in schoolboy Latin, written by 
Philip himself, has an interest of its owm. Respecting 
the history of his projected marriage with Anne Cecil, 
I have succeeded in adding many links to the final one 
alone presented by Zouch, Having told anew the 
story of his foreign travel and experience, as recounted 
in his ebrrespondence with Languet, I have been able 
to show from that correspondence, that, soon after his 
return to England, he was a sharer in the famous 
festivities at Kenilworth, and that thence he proceeded 
to Chartley, the home of the lady soon to be immor- 
talized as Stella. That in 1576 he went to Ireland, 
is shown by documents in the State Paper Office ; and 
from that and other sources we are able to draw some 
new and very memorable details of his visit. Fresh 



PREFACE. 



light is thrown upon his work as an ambassador in 
1577, by the finding among the Harleian MSS. of the 
code of instructions given him by the Queen ; and by 
discovering, in the Cottonian collection, part of a lost 
treatise on his father's Irish policy, I have been able 
for the first time fully to set forth a very noteworthy 
episode in his history. In sketching his life at Court, 
I have attempted to represent its true temper — one 
far more serious than that commonly attributed to him. 
In proving that the cause of his retirement from Court 
in 1580 was not a trivial quarrel with the Earl of 
Oxford, but a patriotic dispute with Queen Ehzabeth, 
I have been able to adduce a characteristic instance of 
his nobleness of mind. In my account of his connection 
with Stella, the one unwelcome passage in his life, I 
believe I have cleared away much previous mystery. 
No important information about the middle period of 
Sidney's history is to be met with at the State Paper 
Ofl&ce ; but thence I have drawn much in illustra- 
tion of his later career. Some faint light is thrown 
upon the preliminaries of his marriage with Sir Francis 
Walsiugham's daughter. Far more important, how- 
ever, is the evidence that in 1583 he held a charter 
for going out as almost the first English colonist of 
America, and that, that project being on good grounds 
abandoned, in 1585 he received office from the Queen 
as Master of the Ordnance. Letters written at this 
period by him to Burghley and Walsingham, and about 
him by many men more or less famous, afford clear 
indication of his yet further growth, both in native 
worth and in influence upon the affairs of his country, 



PEEFACE. XI 

while several other letters belonging to the last few 
months of his life enable us to observe him as a 
soldier, and yet more as a soldier's friend, in the 
Netherlands. 

From the State Paper Office documents I have 
also extracted several letters, entire or in part, as 
illustrative of the lives and characters of Sidney's 
parents, and of Queen Elizabeth's conduct towards 
them. One very long autobiographical letter, written 
by his father to his father-in-law, has supplied me 
with material incorporated in several chapters of this 
work. Since doing that, I have learnt that the 
whole has been printed, with notes by Mr. Herbert 
F. Hore, in successive numbers of The Ulster Journal 
of A rchcBology. 

For a transcript of a considerable portion of the same 
document I am indebted to Mr. Ilobert Lemon, Assis- 
tant Keeper of Her Majesty's Records, to whom further, 
to Mr. H. C. Hamilton, also an Assistant Keeper of the 
Kecords, and to other gentlemen in the same Office, my 
thanks are due for ready help affi)rded to me in 
my consultation of the papers under their charge. 
Here, also, I beg to render thanks to my friend Mr. 
Thomas Brodribb, for his assistance in the collection 
and arrangement of part of the manuscript material 
which I have had occasion to employ. 

To one friend, to Mr. Henry Morley — the friend of 
thousands by reason of his genial biographies of Bernard 
PaHssy, of Jerome Cardan, and of CorneHus Agrippa, 
but my friend in a much closer and dearer sense — I owe 
far more than to any other. The help, in ways both of 



XU PREFACE. 

counsel and of criticism, afforded by him in the pre- 
paration of this volume, is part only of a private 
debt, never to be paid in such poor coin as printed 
words. 

H. R. Fox Bourne. 

LuNDON, March Sth, 1862. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 

Page 

BIRTH AND BOYHOOD. 1554—1563. 

PHILIP SID3s^EY's BIETHPLACE— his PAEEXTAGE — FA]inLT EVENTS 



-AT SHEEWSBUEY SCHOOL 



CHAPTER IT. 

UNDERGRADUATE TEARS. 1568—1572. 

OXFOEB LIFE A^'D STUDIES — THE CECIL HOUSEHOLD — JIAEEIAGE 
PEOJECTS — COLLEGE FEIEXDS ; GEEYILLE, DTEE, CAEEW, 
CAMDEN, HAKLtJYT — LADY SIDXEY's TEOUBLES — AT HOilE . 24 

CHAPTER III. 

FOREIGN SCHOOLING. 1572—1575. 

PAEIS GAIETIES AND PAEIS HOEEOES — TEAYELS IX GEEITAXY AND 
ITALY — HTJBEET LANGTJET— OTHEE FETENDS AND COMPANIONS 
— STUDIES IN LTTEEATUEE AND POLITICS .... 53 



CHAPTER IV. 

FROM YOUTH TO MANHOOD. 1575—1577. 

THE TEACHING OF TWO EAELS, LEICESTEE AND ESSEX — AT EENIL- 
"WOETH — AT CHAETLEY — AT COUET — IN lEELAND — 3I0EE 
MAEEIAGE PEOJECTS 9i 



CHAPTER V. 

EMBASSAGE. 1577. 

EUEOPEAN TEOUBLES — THE EilPEEOE EODOLPH — THE PALATINATE 

— DON JOHN OF AUSTEIA — WILLIAM OF OEANGE . . .134 



XIV CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER VI. 
HOME JOYS AND HOME TROUBLES. 1577. 



Page 



FAMILY TIES — THE NEW COUNTESS OF PEMBROKE — lEISII DIFFICTTL- 

TIE3 — DEFENCE OF SIR HENRY SIDNEY — FRODISHEH's GOLD . 168 



CHAPTER Vli. 

UNDER THE ROYAL SMILE. 1578—1579. 

COtTETLY BUSINESS — ACQUAINTANCES AT COURT; HATTON, SACK*- 
YILLE, WALSINGHAM, KNOLLYS — IN QUEST OF WORK — FOllEIGN 
AND FAMILY CLAIMS — DISPRAISE OF A COURTLY LIFE . .182 



CHAPTER VIII. 

LITERARY BEGINNINGS. 1578—1579. 

LITERARY TRAINING — aSCHAM's INFLUENCE— EARLY AUTHORSHIP 
— LITERARY FRIENDS ; HARVEY AND SPENSER— A NEW SCHOOL 
OF POETRY ....*. * 4 . . 226 



CHAPTER IX. 
UNDER THE ROYAL FROWN. 15?9— 1580. 

IN^ •DlS:fUTE WITH THE EARL OF OXFORD— IN ARGUMENT WiTH 
QUEEN ELIZABETH — LtPE AND WORK AT WILTO"N — THE 
COUNTESS OF PEMBROKE — RETURN TO COURT . . . . 243 



CHAPTER X. 

COURTLY BONDAGE. 1580—1582. 

In tHE SERVICE OF TWO QUEENS — STELLa's INFLUENCE — IN PAR- 
LIAMENT—AT THE TOURNAMENT — A HOLIDAY IN ANTVTERP — 
EMPLOYMENT AT COURT — A N0:BLE DISCONTENT . . . 280 



CHAPTER XI 

AUTHORSHIP AS COURTIER. 1580—1582, 

ROMANCE - WRITING : '' THE ARCADIA " — SONNET - WRITING ! 

" ASTROPHEL AND STELLA " 321 



CONTENTS. XV 

Page 

CHAPTER XII. 

NEW PROJECTS AND NEW DUTIES. 1582—1584. 



FILIAL WORK — KNIGHTHOOD — IfEW WORLD PROJECTS — MAR- 
RIAGE 



CHAPTER XIII. 
LATER WRITINGS. 1583—1585. 



(( 



353 



criticism: "the defence of poesie" — theology: "the 
trewkesse of the christian religion "—in the world 
of letters 383 



CHAPTER XIV. 
THE WORLD OF POLITICS. 1584—1585. 

THE STATE OF EUROPE — PHILIP AGAINST PHILIP — IN PARLIAMENT 

AGAIN — Raleigh's colony — in office — Scottish diplomacy 

— TALK of War — the west INDIAN PROJECT — DRAKE' S DIS- 
HONESTY — THE PROMISE OF FLUSHING — A FATHER . . . 421 



CHAPTER XV. 

WAR AND ITS ACCESSORIES. 1585—1586. 

IN THE NETHERLANDS — IN OPPOSITION TO LEICESTER AND THE 
QUEEN — THE LOSS OF BOTH PARENTS — THE CAPTURE OF 
AXEL — GOVERNORSHIP OF FLUSHING — THE BATTLE OF ZUT- 
PHEN * 472 



CHAPTER XVL 

SICKNESS- AND DEATH. 1586. 

THE BED OF PAIN— THE LAST VICTORY- BURIAL— MOtlRNlNG . 509 



i 



A MEMOIR 



SIE PHILIP SIDNEY. 



CHAPTER I. 

BIRTH AND BOYHOOD. 

1554—1568. 



Sir Philip Sidney — beloved by the noblest, in days 
great with manly achievement, as a type of their 
earnest thought and heroic energy of action — was born 
on the 29th of November, 1554, at Penshurst, in Kent. 
Pleasantly situated in the valley of the Medway, the old 
mansion, modified by re-buildings and enlargements, 
is yet standing. Of all the pictures of the place as 
Sidney knew it, there is none so complete as Ben 
Jonson's. Not, he says, for its polished pillars or a roof 
of gold, for lantern, stair, or courts, that ancient pile had 
reverence. Dear was it to him for its homely charms 
and its pleasant memories. He looked not more 
lovingly upon the house in which his patron dwelt than 
upon the oak — now hollow and broad — ^which grew 



2 A MEMOIR OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. [Chap i 

from an acorn, planted at Sidney's birth. " Thou 
joy'st/' he sings of Penshurst, — 

" Thou joy'st in better marks, of soil and air, 
Of wood, of water, therein thou art fair. 
Thou hast thy walks for health as well as sport ; 
Thy mount, to which the Dryads do resort, 
Where Pan and Bacchus their high feasts have made. 
Beneath the broad beech and the chestnut shade ; 
That taller tree — which, as a nut, was set 
At his great birth, where all the Muses met. 
•sf- -^f -^ -^ # 

The lower land, that to the river bends, 
Thy sheep, thy bullocks, kine and calves do feed ; 
The middle ground thy mares and horses breed. 
Each bank doth yield thee conies ; and the tops 
Fertile of wood, ashore, and Sidney's copse, 
To crown thy open table, doth provide 
The purpled pheasant, with the speckled side. 
The painted partridge lies in every field. 
And, for thy mess, is willing to be kill'd. 
And if the high-swoU'n Medway fail thy dish, 
Thou hast thy ponds that pay thee tribute fish. 
* * -jf * -jf 

Thou hast thy orchard fruit, thy garden flowers, 

Fresh as the air, and new as are the hours. 

The early cherry, with the later plum, 

Fig, grape, and quince, each in his time doth come. 

The blushing apricot and woolly peach 

Hang on thy walls, that every child may reach. 

And, though thy walls be of the county stone. 

They're reared with no man's ruin — no man's groan ; 

There's none that dwell about them wish them down. 

But all come in, the farmer and the clown, 

And no one empty-handed, to salute 

Thy lord and lady, though they have no suit." 

The lord who, with his lady, merited Ben Jonson's 
praise, was Robert, second Earl of Leicester, Sir Philip 
Sidney's brother. But by his parents, eulogy like this 
was yet more fully earned. 



I 



Chap. I.J HIS PARENTAGE. 3 

From them he inherited a rich store of family re- 
nown. His name is traced back to the year 1154, 
when King Henry the Second, coming from Anjou, 
brought with him one Wilham Sidney, a knight, to 
whom he granted the manor of Sutton, in consideration 
of his service in battle, and, at a later date, further 
reward in land for holding office as chamberlain to the 
King.'" In lineal descent from him was another Wil- 
liam Sidney, chamberlain to King Henry the Eighth, 
and, throughout his reign, a zealous servant of the 
State. Of the English force sent in 1510 to aid the 
King of Spain against the Moors, he was one of the 
commanders. Two years later, he was off Brest in the 
squadron of five-and-twenty sliips that made havoc of 
the great fleet of France. In the next year, though 
the French war was not prosperous, William Sidney 
fought well in it. He was knighted before August, 
when he commanded the right wing of the army victo- 
rious at Flodden Field. For such services as these he 
had, among his rewards, the grant of Penshurst, and 
as lord of Penshurst he was to Edward the Sixth, 
from his birth to the time of his coronation, tutor, 
chamberlain, and steward. He died in 1554. f 
Ten months after his death, Henry, the only sur- 
viving son, aged twenty-five, became the father of 
our hero. 

Henry was born on the 21st day of March, 1529. 
" This right famous, renowned, worthy, virtuous, 

* Collins, Introduction to the Sidney Papers, p. 76. Collins is 
my chief authority concerning Sir Philip Sidney's pedigree, 
t Collins, pp. 77, 78, 82. 

^ B 2 



A MEMOIR OF SIR nil UP SIDNEY. 



[Chap. I. 



and heroical knight/' says one of his friends, " by 
father and mother very nobly descended, was from his 
infanc}^ bred and brought up in the prince's court and 
in nearness to his person, used famiharly, even as a 
companion/''^" And he himself tells us that, before he 
was eight years old, he held the child's office of hench- 
man to Henry the Eighth. After which, he goes on to 
sa}^ pleasantly showing how entirely the King's baby 
was a family possession of the f Sidneys, "I was, by that 
most famous King, put to his sweet son Prince Edward, 
my most dear master, prince, and sovereign ; my near 



* Hollingslied, vol. iii. p. 1548. 

t The following table shows Sir Philip's liueage by the father's 
side : — 

Sir William Sidney, Knt,, Chamberlain to King Henry II. 
I Died IISS, buried in Lewes Abbey. 



Sir Simon Sidney, died 1213. 



Roger Sidney, Esquire, died 1239. 

Sir Henry Sidney, died 126S. 

Sir Henry Sidney, died 1309. 

Sir William Sidney. 

John Sidney, Esquij-e. 

Sir William Sidney. 

John Sidney, Esquire. 

William Sidney, Esquire. 

William Sidney, Esquire. 



Sir William Sidney, of Stoke Dabernou, Knight. 
L -^ 

Nicholas Sidney, Esquire. 



Sir William Sidney, of Pensburst, born 1482, died 1554. 



Mary, m. Sir 
W. Dormer. 



Lucy, m. Sir 
John Harring- 
ton. 



1 

Aune, m. Sir 

William Fitz- 

"William of 

Milton. 



Frances, to 

Thomas Rat- 

cliflfe, Earl of 

Sussex. 



Sir Henry Sidney, 

born'l529, 

died 15S6, 

m. Lady Mary 

Dudley. 

P- — I 1 1 , 1 p , 

Sir Philip Mary, m. Margaret, An infant, xVmbrozia, Robert Colone 

Sidney, Henry Her- died quite died quite died 15T5. Sidney, Thomas 

Knight, bert. Earl of young. young. Second Earl Sidney, 

born 1554, Pembroke. of Leicester, 

died 1586. born 15(33. 



Chap. I.J HIS FATHEE. 5 

kinswoman being his only nurse ; mj father being his 
chamberlain ; my mother his goyerness ; my aunt in 
such place as, among meaner personages, is called a dry 
nurse, — for, from the time he left sucking, she continu- 
ally lay in bed with him, so long as he remained in 
women^s government. As the prince grew in years 
and discretion, so grew I in favour and liking of him."* 
Soon after Edward became King, Henry Sidney was 
made one of the four principal Gentlemen of the Royal 
Bedchamber, partly, we learn, because of the singular 
love and entire affection which his sovereign bare him, 
partly because 'he was then reputed for " comeliness of 
person, gallantness and liveliness of spirit, virtue, 
quality, beauty, and good composition of bod}^, the only 
odd man and paragon of the Court. "f In 1550 he was 
knighted, in company with William Cecil, afterwards 
Lord Burghley. In the same year, though not yet 
one-and-twenty, he was employed as ambassador to 
France on important matters, performing his charge, it 
is recorded, " with singular commendation, wisdom, 
spirit, and dexterity."^ Upon his return he was ap- 
pointed chief cup-bearer to the king, and, soon after- 
wards, royal cypherer, with a stipend of fifty marks a 
year. Other honours were conferred upon him : chie 
of all, on the 18th of May, 1553, he was licensed to 

* State Paper Office MSS. Domestic Correspondence^ Elizabeth^ 
vol. clix. 1^0. 1, folio 38. This is a most valuable letter, written in 
1583, by Sir Henry Sidney to Sir Francis Walsiugliani. It occupies 
eighty folio pages, equal to about twice as many pages of this volume, 
and is full of welcome autobiographical information. 

.t Hollingshed, vol. iii. p. 1548. 

X Ibid. 



6 A MEMOIR OF SIR PHILIR SIDNEY. [Chap. i. 

put into livery, as retainers in his service, fifty gentle- 
men and yeomen. By the same document he was for- 
given all his trespasses, forfeitures, penalties, outstanding 
debts, and whatever else amiss was by him done or 
perpetrated since Edward's coronation day.* 

On the 7th of July following, King Edward died at 
Greenwich. After uttering that noble prayer, which 
closed with the entreaty, " Oh, my Lord God, defend 
this realm from Papistry, and maintain Thy true reli- 
gion, that I and Thy people may praise Thy holy 
name ! " he said, " I am faint ; Lord, have mercy upon 
me, and take my spirit ! ^^ Then, looking towards Sir 
Henry Sidney, he fell into his arms, and so expired. f 

Sir Henry, after the death of his royal friend, retired 
to Penshurst, where his father, with but a few months 
more to live, yet resided; where, also, about a year 
before, he had formed for himself a new home. At 
some time in 1552 he had married Lady Mary Dudley, 
daughter of the Duke of Northumberland, a connec- 
tion of which Philip was proud. " I am a Dudley in 
blood,^' he declared ; '' that duke's daughter's son ; and 
do acknowledge, — though, in all truth, I may justly 
affirm that I am, by my father's side, of ancient and 
always well- esteemed and well-matched gentry, — yet I 
do acknowledge, I say, that my chiefest honour is to be 
a Dudley.^J 

On his mother's side, through twelve generations, 
Sir Philip Sidney claimed descent from one Eobert de 

Collins, Introduction, pp. 83, 84. 
t HoUingshed, vol. iii. pp. 1084, 1548. 
X Defence of the Earl o/ ieicea^er, written probably in 1585. 



J 



Chap. I.] HIS MOTHER'S FAMILY. 



Lisle, who, having joined arms with the discontented 
barons against King John, was deprived of his lands 
until the accession of Henry the Third. His son and 
namesake, sharing the love of liberty which brought his 
father into trouble, fought under Simon de Montfort in 
the second barons' war. Warren, his son, was renowned 
for his share in the Scottish expeditions of the First and 
Second Edwards. But when the De Spencers became 
masters of Edward the Second, Warren was a com- 
panion in arms with the other nobles. Taken prisoner 
at Boroughbridge, he was sentenced, in 1322, to be 
drawn and hanged. Edward the Third's accession, 
however, restored honour to the family, and Gerard de 
Lisle, who took foremost rank in the contests with 
Robert Bruce, shared in the victory of Cressy. With 
singular frequency, the succession then passed through 
a line of women. In this way the family became con- 
nected with the Berkeleys, Warwicks, Talbots, Greys, 
and at length Dudleys. In 1495, Elizabeth de Lisle 
was given in marriage to the Edmund Dudley of whom 
Lord Bacon said, that " he was an eminent man, and 
one that could put hateful business into good language." 
His contemporaries thought no better of the business 
for the language. He it was who, together with Sir 
Richard Empson, aided Henry the Seventh in his un- 
lawful appropriations of the wealth of the land. On 
that account Dudley was beheaded in 1509, the family 
estates and dignities being thus forfeited. Soon, how- 
ever, restitution was made to his son John, who earned 
for himself the titles of Baron de L'lsle, Earl of War- 
wick, and Duke of Northumberland. The story is well 



8 A MEMOIR OF SIR THILIP SIDNEY. (CnAr. i. 

known of his ambition, and of the ruin it brought upon 
himself and some of his kin. On the 22nd of August, 
1553, he was executed for the crowning of Lady Jane 
Grey. On the 12th of February, in the next year, 
that unfortunate lady and her husband, Guildford 
Dudley, suffered at the scaffold. Of Northumberland's 
other sons, John, Ambrose, and Eobert were impri- 
soned for supposed implication in the plot. Ambrose 
and Robert survived to become prominent in Ehzabeth's 
reign, the one as Earl of Leicester, the other as Earl of 
Warwick. John went from the Tower direct to Pens- 
hurst, and there, on the 21st of October, three days 
after his release, he died.* 

* The following table shows Sir PHlip's lineage by the mother's 
side : — 

Ralph de L'Isle, 
Ralpli de L'Isle. 



Robert de L'Isle (circa 1216), m. Isabella, daughter of Warren Fitz- Warren, 
I Lord of Heyford-Warine. 

Warren de L'Isle, hanged 1322. 

Gerard de L'Isle, 1299-1360. 

Warren de L'Isle, d. 1382. 



Margaret, 1861-1892, m. Thomas, Lord Berkeley, d. 1415. 

Elizabeth, b. 1385, m. Richard, Earl of Warwick, d. 1439. 

Margaret, m. John Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbuiy. 



John I'olbot, Viscount L'Isle. 

I "— 1 1 

Thomas Talbot, 1442-1471. EUzaheth, va. Edward Grey, Margaret. 

Baron and Viscount L'Isle, d. 1492. 

I X -^ r -I 

John, Viscount L'Isle, d. 1504, Margaret. Anne. Elizabeth, m. 

m. Muriel, daughter of the Edmund Dudley, 

Duke of Norfolk. 1643-1509. 

John, Vicount L'Isle, Earl of Warwick, Andrew, d. 1559. Jerome. EUzaheth. 

Duke of Northumberland, 1501-1553, 
m. Lady Jane Guildford, d. 1555. ^ 

Eenry, John, Ambrose, Robert, Lord Hemy, Maiy, Catherine, 

1526-1544. Earl of Earl of Earl of Guildford d. 1557. d. 1586, m. ra. the 

Warwick, Warwick, Leicester, Dudley, Sir Henry Earl of 

d. 1554. Baron 1532-1588. m. Lady Sidney. Hunting- 

L'lsle, Jane Grey, I don. 

1530-1590. d. 1553. 



Sm Philip Sidney. 



1554.] BABYHOOD. 9 

Thus there was gloom at Penshurst when PhiHp was 
born. Within fifteen months, one grandfather had 
brought an honoured hfe to a timely close ; the other 
had been beheaded — cowardly recantation on his hps. 
One uncle had been sent to the block for foolish compli- 
ance with the crime of others ; a second had exchanged 
a prison for a death-bed. Lady Mary Sidney could not 
have sympathised with the treason which had brought 
disgrace upon her family, and, if so, some shame was 
joined with her sorrow. But she had also ground of 
comfort. Her husband was both just and politic in 
holding to the better and the stronger cause. Sir 
Henry Sidney did nothing which could either hurt his 
credit with posterity or offend his lawful sovereign. 
Although, as he tells us, " neither liking nor hked as he 
had been,'' ''^ he continued to be an honest servant of 
the State, and to be thought well of at Court. By a 
charter of Queen Mary's, dated the 8th of November, 
1554, all his former honours and offices were confirmed 
to him ; and the child, born three weeks afterwards, 
was christened Philip, in honour of Queen Mary's hus- 
band. 

Philip was the first-born; nursed tenderly by a mother 
of rare womanly worth, prudently watched over by a 
father rightly famous for honesty and wisdom. With 
his little sister Mary, his junior by a year, he rambled 
through Penshurst woods, and about '-' that lower land 
which to the river bends," of which Ben Jonson speaks, 
while martyr-flames were rising high, and English air 

* State Paper Office MSS. Domestic Corr.espondence, Elizahetlc, 
vol. clix. No. 1. 



10 A MEMOIR OF SIR rillLIP SIDNEY. IChap. i. 

was thick with sighs and curses. Great men, heavy- 
hearted at the misery which had fallen upon the 
land, were the guests of his parents, and he must have 
listened to their earnest, mournful talk. Cecil may 
have spoken shrewd, memorable words to him ; and 
Ascham, the best witness to her wit, and grace, and 
learning, may have told him pleasant stories about 
Lady Jane, his aunt. But of his father he saw not 
very much. 

Sir Henry Sidney was a busy workman for his coun- 
try's weal. The scene of his most important action 
was Ireland. Thither he was sent in April, 1556, as 
Vice-Treasurer-General of the Eoyal Revenues, in com- 
pany with Lord Fit z- Walter, the new Lord Deputy. In 
July he marched victoriously against the Scots of Ulster, 
slaying with his own hand James MacConnel, their 
leader. He was afterwards appointed Lord Justice of 
Ireland, and in 1558, when Elizabeth became Queen, 
his offices were confirmed.* 

There is an interval of five years, during most of 
which he served the State as Lord President of Wales, 
doing much to organize the government of the princi- 
pality, to improve its defences, and to set in motion 
suitable reforms. In May, 1 562, a deputy was appointed 
for him while he went as ambassador, first to France, 
and afterwards to Scotland — already disturbed by 
Queen Mary Stuart's recent return to her sovereignty.f 
On the 14th of the following May he was installed 

* Collins, p. 85. 

t State Paper Office MSS. Domestic Correspondence, Elizabeth, 
vol. xxiii. No. 20. 



m^2-ii:] HIS father's WOEK. 11 

Knight of the Garter, having Charles the Ninth of 
France for companion in the honour.* 

Meanwhile, affairs in Ireland were growing every 
year more complicated. In 1560, the Earl of Sussex 
had been sent over to enforce Protestantism upon the 
Catholics. The unjust order was unwisely executed, 
and rebellion soon broke out in ever-turbulent Ulster. 
O'Neil — for whom, in the days of his submission, the 
title had been invented of " O'Neil the Great, cousin to 
Saint Patrick, friend to the Queen of England, and 
enemy to all the world besides," f — promptly seized the 
occasion, and sought by it to secure his independence. 
He gathered a formidable army, and sent despatches to 
foreign sovereigns as being a monarch like themselves. 
To check him and restore order there was need of a 
prudent governor, and the Queen's choice fell upon Sir 
Henry Sidney. On the 13th of October, 1565, he 
was appointed Lord Deputy of Ireland, and exactly 
three months afterwards he arrived in Dublin, having 
been detained by shipwreck, in which, he says, " I lost 
the most of my household stuff and utensils, my wife's 
whole apparel, and all her jewels, many horses, and 
stable-stuff."J 

He found that of all the northern and western parts of 
Ireland, O'lSTeil had made himself master. " The Queen 
had nothing in possession in all this large tract of land 
but the miserable town of Carrickfergus, whose goods 

* Regist. Garter, pp. 377, 378. 

f Campian, History of Ireland (Dublin, 1809), p. 189. 
% State Paper Office. Domestic Correspondence, Mizaheth, vol. clix. 
IS^o. 1, fo. 1. 



12 A MEMOIR OF SIR PTTILIP SIDNEY. [Chap. I. 

ho would take as oft as ho listed, and force the poor 
people to redeem their own cows with their own wine. 
He held the county of Louth in such awe that he made 
the most of them to pay him tribute, called there 
' black rent,' or else, by death or force, he would plague 
them. With this monstrous monarchical tyrant," wrote 
Sir Henry Sidney, " I made war ; and, in truth, he was 
mighty, for he had of Scots and Irish seven thousand 
men that ware weapons. I had but seventeen hundred, 
with three hundred Berwick soldiers. I advanced into 
the rebel's country on the 22nd of September, 1566. 
I wasted or destroyed all or most part of Tyrone. 
I passed without boat or bridge the dangerous rivers of 
Omagh, Darg, and Finn. Here the rebel, with all his 
power, showed himself unto me, but fight with me he 
durst not, and made some bravado to my camp, but 
enter it he could not. At last I came to the great 
water, or sea-arm, of Loch Foyle, where I found boats, 
as I had appointed, to convey me and my army over. 
So I left Tyrone and entered Tyrconnel, where I found 
a regiment of seven hundred soldiers, full well captained, 
chosen, and appointed. There at an old church I made 
a new town," — since grown into Londonderry, — "and, 
being well furnished with men, munition, and victual, I 
left the regiment in it, and marched through Tyrconnel, 
a country of seventy miles in length, and somewhere forty 
broad, full of hard passages and dangerous rivers. By 
the way, I left not one castle in possession of the rebel 
nor unrestored to the right owner." In this way the 
Lord Deputy travelled on and down through Donegal, 
and Fermanagh, and Leitrim, and Sligo. "From 



1566, 



11 ] HIS father's woek. 13 



thence/' to continue the storj in his own "vigorous 
words, " to Roscommon, the strong castle of which was, 
with some ado, dehvered me, being in the possession of 
disloyal Irishmen a hundred and sixty years ; for so long 
was it before that it was betrayed, and the Enghsh con- 
stable and ward murdered, as I found in the Irish 
chronicles. There I planted a small garrison, which 
hath continued ever since ; and what good service the 
same hath done for the reformation of the province, 
with continuance of residence, with rent and profit, and 
how good a town is now builded about it, I am sure you 
know better than I can inform you." 

With this long progress, the summer and autumn 
were very well occupied. But as soon as Sir Henry 
Sidney had passed out of the northern counties, the 
rebels took heart again. O'Neil gathered an army and 
treacherously proceeded to Drogheda, where Lady 
Sidney was waiting, and her danger seemed very great. 
Yet the small garrison fought manfully, and gained 
the day. The regiment at Derry also battled with rare 
bravery. " Seeing these good adventures achieved by 
others,'^ Sir Henry went on to say, " I, being absent 
from them, thought I would not be idle. Between the 
end of November and the beginning of Lent following, 
I made many incursions into his country, sometimes as 
low as Dungannon, and with such diligence, as my avant 
couriers have sworn to me that they have felt his couch 
warm where he lay that night, and yet their luck not 
to light on him. In the Christmas holidays I visited 
him in the heart of his country, where he had made as 
great an assembly as he could, and had provided as 



14 A MEMOIR OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. [Chap. I. 

great and good cheer as was to be had in the country. 
And when word was brought him that I was so near 
him, * That is not possible,' quoth he, ' for the day before 
yesterday I know he dined and sat under his cloth of 
state in the hall of Kilmaynham/ ' By O'Neil's hand,' 
quoth the messenger, ' he is in this country, and not far 
off, for I saw the red bractoc with the knotty club, that 
is carried before none but himself,' meaning my pensile 
with the ragged staff.* With that he 'ran away, and so 
I shortened his Christmas, and made an end of mine 
own with abundance of his good provision, but not pro- 
vided for such an unbidden guest as I was. This, I 
think, was the eighth or ninth inroad I made upon him, 
encamping sometimes two, three, or four nights in the 
country ; and how pleasant a life it is that time of the 
year, with hunger, and after sore travail, to harbour 
long and cold nights in cabins made of boughs and 
covered with grass, I leave to your indifferent judgment. 
Thus, and by these means, I brought him very low." 
The ending of the war is thoroughly Irish. After some 
months of further fighting, 'Neil's cause grew hopeless. 
He fell into the society of some seeming friends, and 
they gave him good entertainment, until occasion arose 
for treachery ; then they cut off his head, and presently 
Sir Henry Sidney received it " pickled in a pipkin." 

" But the devil never sleeps," was the Lord Deputy's 
finding. The Earl of Ormond, one of the few Irish 
nobles who resided at the EngHsh Court, and who 
thought that his courtly bearing before the Queen 



* The badge of the Dudleys, adopted by Sir Henry Sidney upon 
his marriage with a daughter of the house. 



ML~u-ii} HIS FATHEK's troubles. 15 

entitled him to unchecked authority in his own wild 
dominions, used all his influence with Elizabeth for 
gaining his wishes, and especially for having his rival, 
the Earl of Desmond, crushed. Because her suitor 
was a handsome man and a zealous flatterer, the 
Queen willingly gave ear to his arguments, and sent 
suitable directions to the Lord Deputy. In answer to 
his reports of the victories gained in the north, Sidney 
received complaints that he was not looking after 
Ormond's interests in the comparatively peaceable 
south. In the midst of his hard fighting and rapid 
travelKng, he did all that was in his power. He appointed 
agents to investigate, and skilful committees to consider 
the position of aflairs, and advise on the best mode of 
procedure. They stated that both earls were at fault, 
that each was vehemently struggling for his own selfish 
interests, regardless alike of the duty which he owed 
to the Queen and of the claims of his poor oppressed 
dependents. " Albeit they would inveigh against each 
other, yet if any sentence passed for the advancement 
of the Queen's prerogative, or suppression of either of 
their tyrannies, straightway it was cried out of and 
complained of to the Queen, specially by the Earl of 
Ormond, as injustice and oppression.'' 

This state of things, lasting at intervals through a 
dozen years, must be borne steadily in mind, as being 
the key to the whole of Sir Henry Sidney's career, 
and to an important element in the history of his son. 
Philip. Out of the Lord Deputy's honest dealing sprang 
much worldly disaster to both father and son ; and it 
had fairly begun in this winter of 1566 and 1567. 



l(j A MEMOIR OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. [Chap. i. 

" I received/^ said Sir Henry, " many a bitter letter, 
which indeed tried me, and so perplexed my most dear 
wife, as she fell most grievously sick upon the same, 
and in that sickness remained once in a trance above 
fifty-two hours ; upon whose recovery I sent her into 
England, where she lived till my coming over." * 

Meanwhile the Lord Deputy set himself to study 
carefully the condition of the southern part of the 
island, and to consider the best means of bettering it, 
keeping especially in his mind the quarrelsome tempers 
of Orniond and Desmond. In the early months of 
1567 he made a tour through the south and west, and 
of his observations there is welcome record in a letter 
which he sent to Queen EHzabeth. In Queen's County 
and Kilkenny he found good order prevaihng, and in 
Waterford the people were for the most part friendly, 
though " ready to play the part of the washed swine 
in returning to her foul puddle, unless continuance of 
justice amongst them detain them from it." As he 
proceeded, the spectacle grew more appalling. " As I 
never was in a more pleasant country in all my life, so 
\: never saw I a more waste and desolate land," than 
from Youghal to Limerick. In Connaught the case 
was still worse. The Earl of Clanricarde had two 
wives living, and their two sons wasted the country in 
strife as to who should be heir. " From Galway 
I travelled through a great and ancient town in Con- 
naught, called Athenry, where I was offered a pitiful 
and lamentable present, namely, the keys of the town, 

* State Paper Office MSS. Domestic- Correspondence, Elizabeth^ 
vol. clix. ISTo. 1. 



't 



^\ 12. ] HIS FATHERS TROUBLES. 17 

not as to receive them of me again, as all other ac- 
customably do, but for me still to keep, or otherwise 
dispose at my pleasure ; inasmuch as they were so 
impoverished by the extortion of the lords about them 
as they were no longer able to keep that town. The 
town is large and well walled, and it appeareth, by 
matter of record, there hath been in it three hundred 
good householders, and since I knew this land there 
was twenty, and now I find but four, and they poor, 
and, as I write, ready to leave the place. The cry and 
lamentation of the poor people was great and pitiful 
and nothing but thus; — 'Succour, succour, succour!'"* 

Succour was given, to the utmost of his. power, by 
the wise Lord Deputy. " The only way,"*' he said, " for 
reformation of these two provinces, was by planting 
justice by presidents and councils in each." This he 
subsequently attempted to do, and did in some mea- 
sure. First, however, he returned to England, partly 
because of "the sharp and bitter letters which," he 
said, " I almost weekly received out of England, by 
the procurement of the Earl of Ormond," partly on 
account of his health, which was altogether impaired 
by the hard work that he had lately undertaken.! 

This resting-time of Sir Henry Sidney's is chiefly 
memorable to us because it affords the starting-point 
for detailed knowledge of his son's career. Since 
the 16th of November, 1564, when he was just finish- 
ing his tenth year, Philip had been at school in 

* Sidney Papers, vol. i. pp. 18 — 31. 

t A very curious document on the state of Sir Henry Sidney's 
health is printed by Collins, Introduction, pp. 93 — 95. 



18 A MEMOIR OF SIR riTILT? SIDNEY. fCnAP. i 

Shrewsbury.*' While holding office as Lord President 
of Wale's, Sir Henry had lived in state at Ludlow 
Castle, situated on the southern border of Shropshire. 
Thence Shrewsbury was not thirty miles distant, and 
he seems to have visited it more than once in every 
year. It was not only the nearest and most available 
town in which trustworthy schooling was to be had, but 
contained one of the best schools in England. f The 
master, Thomas Ashton, was a man famous in his day 
for his learning and good sense. He had been educated 
at Oxford at about the same time as Sir Henry Sidney. 
Perhaps the two had been college friends ; at any rate, 
the President thought highly of the schoolmaster to 
whose care he entrusted his son during his absence in 
Ireland. 

Philip was a sturdy little workman, apt and zealous 
in all scholarly acquirements. In those days schooling 
began and ended sooner than it does now. But among 

* Under tliat day his name is entered in the school-register, 
together with that of Fulke Greville, afterwards Lord Brooke, his 
life-long friend and first biographer. — Sidneiana (Roxburghe Club, 
1837), p. 1. 

t Camden's contemporary account of Shrewsbury is interesting. 
"At this day," he says, "it is a fine city, well inhabited, and of 
good commerce ; and by the industry of the citizens, and their cloth 
manufacture and their trade with the Welsh, is very rich ; for hither 
the Welsh commodities are brought as to the common mart of both 
nations. Its inhabitants are partly English, partly Welsh. They 
use both languages. And this, among other things, must be men- 
tioned to their highest praise — that they have erected the largest 
school in all England for the education of youth ; for which Thomas 
Ashton, the first schoolmaster, a person of great worth and integrity, 
provided, by his own industry, a competent salary." — Britannia 
(1586). 



1?^J^12.] AT SHREWSBURY SCHOOL. 19 

his comrades Philip was notable for the early ripeness 
of his mind. " Of his youth/' wrote his schoolfellow, 
college companion, and lifelong friend, Fulke Greville, 
Lord Brooke, " I will report no other wonder but this, 
that though I lived with him and knew him from a 
child, yet I never knew him other than a man ; with 
such staidness of mind, lovely and familiar gravity, as 
carried grace and reverence above greater years ; his 
talk ever of knowledge, and his very play tending to 
enrich his mind, so as' even his teachers found some- 
thing in him to observe and learn, above that which 
they had usually read or taught. Which eminence by 
nature and industry made his worthy father style Sir 
Phihp in my hearing, though I unseen, lumen famiUce 

Light of the household indeed ! Sir Henry Sidney 
was proud of his son. From very early 3^ears he 
designed to train him to be an ambassador and a 
statesman, to follow a course in hfe kindred to his own. 
We are able to read his thought about the boy in a 
letter which he wrote to him from Ireland, and when 
he was barely more than eleven years old.f The letter 
is so indicative of the character of both father and son, 
so characteristic also of the noblest tendencies of the 
age, that it must be quoted entire. Sir Henry Sidney 

* Tlie Life of the Benoivned Sir Philip Sidney (ed. 1652), pp. 6, T. 

t There is no date to tlie letter, but it is traditionally, and I 
imagine rightly, assigned to the year 1566. It i& not likely to have 
been written earlier, seeing how much intelligence it supposes in 
the boy ; and not very long after, as we shall see, he was removed 
from Shrews])ury. 

2 



20 A MEMom OF siij rniup ridney. rcnAP. i. 

was too busy a man to set down useless words. He let 
eleven years go by without once writing to the child 
whom he loved tenderly. But when he did write, it 
was to compress a whole code of Christian, manly duty 
into a few pithy sentences, which the lad was to con 
earnestly, to read over every four or five days until 
each word was fixed upon his memory, and then to 
spend a life-time in translating into action. A pedagogue 
could teach Philip to write letters in French and Latin 
before he was twelve years old : 'his father sought only 
to put the man's soul into his learning. 



*'I have received," wrote Sir Henry Sidney, "two letters from 
you, one written in Latin, the other in French ; which I take in 
good part, and wish you to exercise that practice of learning often ; 
for that will stand you in most stead, in that profession of life that 
you are born to live in. And since this is my first letter that ever I 
did write to you, I will not that it be all empty of some advices 
which my natural care of you provoketh me to wish you to follow, as 
documents to you in this your tender age. Let your first action be 
the lifting up of your mind to Almighty God, by hearty prayer ; and 
feelingly digest the words you speak in prayer, with continual medita- 
tion and thinking of Him to whom you pray, and of the matter for 
which you pray. And use this as an ordinary act, and at an ordinary 
hour ; whereby the time itself shall put you in remembrance to do 
that which you are accustomed to do in that time. Apply your 
study to such hours as your discreet master doth assign you, ear- 
nestly ; and the time I know he will so limit, as shall be both 
sufficient for your learning and safe for your health. And mark the 
sense and the matter of that you read, as well as the words. So 
shall you both enrich your tongue mth words, and your wit with 
matter ; and judgment will grow as years groweth in you. Be 
humble and obedient to your master, for unless you frame yourself to 
obey others, yea, and feel in yourself what obedience is, you shall 
never be able to teach others how to obey you. Be courteous of 
gesture, and affable to all men, with diversity of reverence, according 
to the dignity of the person : there is nothing that winneth so much 



^\^.^ii ] FATHEELY COUNSEL. 21 

with so little cost. Use moderate diet, so as, after your meal, you 
may find your wit fresher and not duller, and your body more lively 
and not more heavy. Seldom drink wine ; and yet sometimes do, 
lest, being enforced to drink upon the sudden, you should find your- 
self enflamed. Use exercise of body, yet such as is without peril of 
your joints or bones : it will increase your force, and enlarge your 
breath. Delight to be cleanly, as well in all parts of your body as 
in your garments : it shall make you grateful in each company, and 
otherwise loathsome. Give yourself to be merry ; for you degenerate 
from your father, if you find not yourself most able in wit and body 
and to do anything when you be most merry : but let your mirth be 
ever void of all scurrility and biting words to any man, for a wound 
given by a word is oftentimes harder to be cured than that which is 
given with the sword. Be you rather a hearer and bearer away of 
other men's talk than a beginner and procurer of speech ; • otherwise 
you shall be counted to delight to hear yourself speak. If you hear 
a Avise sentence or an apt phrase, commit it to your memory with 
respect of the circumstance when you shall speak it. Let never oath 
be heard to come out of your mouth, nor word of ribaldry : detest it 
in others ; so shall custom make to yourself a law against it in your- 
self. Be modest in each assembly ; and rather be rebuked of light 
fellows for maiden-Uke shamefastness, than of your sad friends for 
pert boldness. Think upon every word that you will speak before 
you utter it, and remember how nature hath ramparted up, as it 
were, the tongue with teeth, lips, yea, and hair without the lips, and 
all betokening reins or bridles for the loose use of that member. 
Above all things tell no untruth ; no, not in trifles : the custom of it 
is naughty. And let it not satisfy you that, for a time, the hearers 
take it for truth ; for after it will be known as it is, to your shame : 
for there cannot be a greater reproach to a gentleman than to be 
accounted a liar. Study and endeavour yourself to be virtuously 
occupied : so shall you make such a habit of well-doing in you, that 
you shall not know how to do evil, though you would. Remember, 
my sen, the noble blood you are descended of, by your mother's 
side ; and think that only by virtuous life and good action you may 
be an ornament to that illustrious family ; and otherwise, through 
vice and sloth, you sha,ll be counted labes generis — one of the greatest 
curses that can happen to man. Well, my little Philip, this is 
enough for me, and too much, I fear, for you. But if I shall find 
that this light meal of digestion nourish anything in the weak stomach 
of your capacity, I wiU., as I find the same grow stronger, feed it 



22 A MEMOIR OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. I Chap. i. 

with tougher food. Youi loving father, so long as you live in the 
fear of God. 

"H. Sidney."* 

So wortliily, as a father mindful of his trust, wrote the 
Lord President himself Then followed " a postscript 
by my Lady Sidney, in the skirts of my Lord Presi- 
dent's letter, to her said son Philip." 

" Your noble and careful father hath taken pains with his own 
hand to give you, in this his letter, so wise, so learned, and most 
requisite precepts, for you to follow mth a diligent and humble, 
thankful mind, as I will not withdraw your eyes from beholding and 
reverently honouring the same ; no, not so long time as to read any 
letter from me. And therefore, at this time, I will write luito you 
no other letter than this ; whereby I j&rst bless you with my desire to 
God to plant in you His grace ; and secondarily warn you to have 
always before the eyes of your mind these excellent counsels of my 
lord, your dear father, and that you fail not continually, once in foiu- 
or five days, to read them over. And for a final leave-taking for this 
time, see that you show yourself as a loving, obedient scholar to your 
good master to govern you yet many years ; and that my lord and I 
may hear that you profit so in your learning as thereby you may 
increase our loving care for you, and deserve at his hands the con- 
tinuance of his great joy, to have him often witness with his own 
hand the hope he hath in your well-doing. Farewell, my little 
Philip ; and once again, the Lord bless you ! Yom- loving mother, 

"Maky Sidney." t 

Letter and postscript were WTitten doubtless during 
Sir Henry Sidney's Irish employment, in 1566. He 
returned to England in October, 1567, and made a stay 
of ten months' length. For some part of this time he 
was busy at the Court, rendering account of the work 
which he had done, justifying himself against the charges 

* Sidney Papers, vol. i., pp. 8, 9. 

t Harhian Miscellany (1812), vol. ix. pp. 447, 448. 



1568. 
Et. 13. 



] LEAVING SCHOOL. 28 



of the Earl of Ormond, and receiving instructions as to 
what he should do on his return. Doubtless he also 
gave some leisure to inspecting the affairs of Wales, for 
of that principality he continued to be Lord President, 
his work being done by a deputy, during his Irish em- 
ployment. His health was greatly broken, and, in 
obedience to physicians' orders, he observed as much 
quiet as possible. It is enough for us to know that he 
did not neglect the affairs of his son Philip, whom he 
removed from Master Ashton's school at Shrewsbury, 
about Midsummer, or a few months earlier, and entered 
at Oxford as a student of Christ Church. 



CHAPTER II. 

UNDBRGRADUATE YEARS. 

1568—1572. 

At the universities there had been, in Queen Mary's 
day, decay of learning. From Ascham we hear of the 
faiHng knowledge of the tongues and the perverted way 
of study. " Sophistry," he says, " not well, not old, but 
that new rotten sophistry, began to beard and shoulder 
logic. Also in outward behaviour then began simpli- 
city in apparel to be laid aside, courtly gallantness to 
be taken up. Contention in youth was nowhere for 
learning, factions in the elders were everywhere for 
trifles."'" By Elizabeth's accession there came increase 
to the courtliness of manners that offended Ascham's 
simple taste ; but with it was revival of good scholar- 
ship. Not only was there a breaking down of bars 
against free thought : the Queen herself kept watch 
over the schools. In the autumn of 1564 she visited 
Cambridge, where her great Secretary of State, Sir 
William Cecil, was chancellor ; and two years later 
she inspected Oxford University, then under the chan- 
cellorship of Philip Sidney's uncle, the Earl of Leicester. 
We may look to the details of this latter visitation for 

* The Schoolmaster. 



1566 



11 } UNIVEKSITY LIFE. 25 



a sufficient sketch of one part of university life while 
PhiKp was preparing for his entrance at Christ Church. 
Her Majesty reached Oxford on Saturday night, the 
31st of August. The new Chancellor and the doctors 
in their robes went forth to meet and conduct her 
through the city gates. There she was received by the 
mayor and aldermen, who tendered her a gilt cup and 
forty pounds in gold. Speeches and orations were 
made without number. To one, delivered in Greek, 
the learned sovereign replied in the same tongue. At 
church she heard a Te Deum chaunted on her behalf, 
and after that she went to her lodgings. Next day, 
being Sunday, as she was not well enough to attend 
morning service, admission to her presence was granted 
to Peter Carew, a handsome, clever boy, who had just 
entered the University. He came to speak a Latin 
address, and this he did so prettily that the Queen 
bade him go through it again. In the afternoon she 
went to church ; and in the evening a Latin play, 
called Marcus Gemmus, was acted before her. The 
following four days were spent in hstening to more 
oratory, in attending several learned disputations, and 
in visiting the various colleges. Her Majesty talked 
kindly with the students, and wisely counselled them 
as to their work. In the evenings she tested their skill 
•in another sort of exercise. She saw the play of 
Palamon and Arcite, written by Master Richard 
Edwards, and acted by members of the University, 
young Carew, it seems, being Emilia. Though a very 
tame doggrel of tragedy mixed with coarse comedy, it 
greatly pleased Ehzabeth and her courtiers. They also 



2C A MEMOIR OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. [Chap. n. 

witnessed what they regarded as the less agreeable 
performance of Progne, a morality composed by 
Doctor James Calf hill. On Friday, the Gth of Sep- 
tember, the Queen left Oxford with a " Farewell, thou 
worthy University of Oxford ; farewell, my good sub- 
jects ; farewell, my dear scholars ; pray God prosper 
your studies ; farewell, farewell ! ''* 

Her Majesty^s sweet, affable, and noble bearing all 
through this visit, we are told, made a great impression 
on the minds of the students. It caused rare emula- 
tion in their studies, and no way was left untrodden 
wherein they could hope to approach her favour and 
become acceptable in her eyes.f There was talk of 
another inspection exactly two years later, when Ehza- 
beth passed Oxford on the road from WalKngford 
to Bicester, but it does not appear to have been made. 

Meanwhile, Phihp Sidney had been introduced to 
the University. Of the precise date we have no 
record, but it must have been either at or shortly 
before the midsummer of 1568. His father was in 
Oxford on the 2nd of August, on which day we find 
that he was created honorary Master of Arts, and that 
he lodged at Christ Church,^ the college of which 
Philip was for some years a member. There can be 
no doubt as to the objects of his visit. He came to 
see what progress his son had made in his studies, and 
to take him back to Ludlow, § whither Cecil wrote to 

* Wood, Annals of Oxford (ed. by Gutch, 1796), pp. 154—163. 
t Ibid., p. 163. 

X Wood, Fasti Oxoniensis (ed. by Bliss, 1815), Part i. col. 183. 
§ Sidney Papers, vol. i. pp. 34, 35. 



}J^%~\ HIS PLACE AT OXFORD. 27 



him on the 9th of August, sending his comphments to 
Lady Sidney and the darhng Philip.'"' 

The darhng Phihp, not yet fourteen years old, had 
already won boyish fame. "You have offended 
many," said the greafc Secretary of State in a playful 
letter which he wrote on the 3rd of September to Sir 
Henry Sidney, who had by that time gone to resume 
his Lord Deputyship of Ireland. " There is one thing 
that is heavy for you to bear, considering you have 
therein offended many. You carried away your son and 
my scholar from Oxford, not only from his books, but 
from the commodity to have been seen of my lords, his 
uncles, and to have been approved by me, and to have 
pleasured both me and my wife. I think, indeed, 
either you forgat the Queen's progress to be so near 
Oxford, or else you have some matter of necessity 
to allege, both for your taking him from Oxford, 
and for your detaining of him so long in wild 
Wales.'' t 

Sir Henry's reason for detaining Philip some three 
or four weeks in Wales, or rather in Shropshire, was a 
good one. He naturally wished to have his son with 
him for a little while before starting for Dublin, on an 
errand which might banish him for years. And in 
this holiday Philip had more natural and wholesome 
satisfaction than he would have found in the small 
excitement of a Eoyal progress. But it is pleasant to 
think that even now, boy as he was, he stood high in 

* State Paper Office, MSS., Irish Correspondence, Elizabeth, vol. 
XXV. No. 63. 

t Ibid., vol. XXV. No. 75. 



28 A MEMOIR OF Sill TIIILir SIDNEY. ICnAP.n. 

the esteem of wise men, and was thought kindly of by 
them, that when absent he could be missed, not only by 
his uncle, the Earl of Leicester, and by many other cour- 
tiers, but even by so busy a man as Sir William Cecil. 

Between the Cecils and the Sidneys there was at 
this time very close friendship. Sir Henry had not been 
long absent from England before Sir William found 
time to run down either to Ludlow or to Penshurst, on 
a visit to Lady Sidney. " I most heartily thank you," 
wrote her husband to the Secretary, on the last day of 
November, " for your courteous visitation of my wife ; 
and I pray you sometimes hearken of our boy, and be 
working how to get home the father." Then he ended 
his letter with " most hearty commendations to your- 
self, my lady, and my sweet jewel, your daughter."'" 

Perhaps Cecil did try to bring home the Lord 
Deputy from business which, considering the Queen's 
cruel thanklessness, and his own broken health, was 
harder than he cared to undertake ; yet it is not very 
likely, for the Secretary knew the great value of the 
public service his friend was then doing in Ireland. 
But Sir Henry's other request he could and did gladly 
obey. Eleven days before the date of the letter from 
which I have been last quoting, he had written to say 
that he expected Lady Sidney to come next Monday 
on a visit to his wife at Hampton Court,t where pro- 
bably she kept Christmas. 

If so, there Philip met her. Having returned to 

* Sidney Fajyers, vol. i. p. 40. 

t State Paper Office, MSS., Irish Corresijondence, Elizabeth, vol. 
XX vi. No. 4G. 



^'^{•4. ] THE FAMILY OF THE CECILS. 29 

Oxford in August or September, and having spent 
some months in hard work, we find him taking hohday 
at Hampton Court when the new year opened.* It 
was a memorable week in his Hfe. Just past fourteen, 
and arrived at the new dignity of a college gown, he 
must have felt himself now fairly on the rise from 
boyhood to manhood. He was there as the friend of 
a family that might be thought well nigh the happiest 
in England. 

Cecil was then in his fiftieth year. He had honour- 
ably held ofiice as Principal Secretary of State, since 
Elizabeth's accession. The Queen, who had seen his 
prudence and fidelity tried thoroughly in the season of 
her adversity, loved him as her best friend, and 
trusted him as her best adviser now that her state 
was prosperous. The chief burden of the nation rested 
on him, and at the present moment especially, between 
home matters of great weight, sounds of rebellion in 
Ireland, of war in Scotland, and dangers of all kinds 
threatening in France and Flanders, there was enough 
to distract the head of a less wary and discriminating 
statesman. In a letter to Sir Henry Sidney he de- 
clared that he could think of nothing but w^hat was 
absolutely needful, because of the "tub-fuir^ of business 
which had to be disposed off But to the young man 
who was visiting him he found time to pay a hearty and 
affectionate attention. On the 6th of January, at the end 
of a long letter upon various government questions, he 

* State Paper Oflfice, MSS., Irish Correspondence, Elizabeth, vol. 
xxvii. No. 2. 

t Ibid., vol. xxvi. No. 48. 



30 A MEMOIR OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. [CnAP n. 

wrote to the Lord Deputy, ''Your Philip is here, in 
whom I take more comfort than I do openly utter for 
avoiding of ^yrong interpretation. He is worthy to be 
loved, and so I do love him, as he were mine own/'* 

Philip had met Cecil often before, but it is likely 
that now for the first time he saw the Secretary's wife 
and daughter. Lady Mildred Cecil, at that time forty - 
three, was a daughter of Sir Anthony Cooke. In com- 
pany with Lady Jane Grey, the Princess Elizabeth, and 
— as I would fain believe, and not without reason- — Lady 
Mary Dudley, she had learned from Roger Ascham Greek 
and Latin, and all the lore which those languages con- 
tained ; and of Greek, says her teacher, she knew more 
than any, save the Lady Jane. Her heart was as well 
trained as her intellect. The actions of her hfe revealed 
the unobtrusive piety that she practised, and the cha- 
rities which she bestowed with a free hand told their 
own tale. Sorrow, too, had, with its sacred touch, added 
refinement to her noble character. One after another, 
the three children earliest born to her had died before 
they could call her by the name of mother. Three 
others were now living, — Eobert, who inherited most 
of his father's titles and ofiices, Anne, and Ehzabeth. 

Anne, Sir Henry Sidney's "sweet jewel," was a 
year or so younger than Philip Sidney. f She was a 
pretty damsel, already giving proof of the w^it and 

* State Paper Office, MSS., Irish Correspondence, Elizabeth, vol. 
xxvii. No. 2. 

t Slie -was a little child in 1557. On the 30th of November in 
that year, Sir Philip Hoby wrote to ask Lady Cecil to come and 
spend Christmas with his wife, and to bring "little Tannykin" with her. 
— State Paper Office, Domestic Correspondence, Mary, vol. xi. No. 30. 



1569. 
^t. 14. 



] EAELY COURTSHIP. 31 



grace which were to be her main support through a 
very sorrowful career. As a girl, she was light- 
hearted enough, and doubtless Philip, who, as Ben 
Jonson tells us, was wont to wander in the woods, 
and — 

" cut the names 
Of many a sylvan token with his flames," 

was not lacking in appreciation of her charms. Doubt- 
less, Lady Cecil and Lady Sidney, also, when they saw 
the youth and maiden pleasantly occupied with each 
other, enjoyed motherly talk about the two, and settled 
that they might both be worse matched. 

Be that as it may, we find that, immediately after 
this holiday gathering, Sir Henry Sidney wrote from 
Dublin to make overtures of marriage between Philip 
and Anne. Cecil replied on the 2nd of February 
following. His letter — beginning with one of those 
vague prefatory sentences, which were as necessary to 
him as the " Sir " was to Doctor Johnson — is eminently 
characteristic : — 

" My good Lord, 

" If my power for doing, or my leisure for writing, were as 
some portion of my desire is to notify to you my good wUl, you 
should have as good proof thereof as I see you have in hope an 
assurance. I thank you for your free offer made to me by your 
letters concerning your son, whom truly I do so like for his own con- 
ditions and singular towardness in all good things, as I think you a 
happy father for so joyful a son. And as for the interest that it 
pleaseth you to offer me in him, I must confess, if the child alone 
were valued without the natural good that dependeth of you his 
father, I could not but think him worthy the love I bear him, which 
certainly is more than I do express outwardly, for avoiding of sinister 
interpretation. For, as for the accompt to have him my son, I see 



32 A MEMOIR OF SIR PITILTP SIDNEY. [Chap, n 

so many incidenties, as it sufBceth me to love the child for himself, 
without regard therein of my daughter, whom surely I love so well 
as, so it be within my degree or not much above, I shall think none 
too good for her. Thus you see a father's fondness, which to a 
father I dare discover, and so for this time it sufficeth."* 

Cecirs mind was spoken very plainly in that letter. 
He had real friendship for the Sidneys, both father 
and son ; he had real love also for his pretty daughter. 
But it was not probable, he thought, that Philip would 
ever be rich enough or high enough in worldly rank 
to be a fit son-in-law to him. Anne's husband must be 
at least within her father's degree, if not above it. 
This fundamental principle of match-making was not 
at all peculiar to Sir William Cecil ; but it formed part 
of the worldly- wisdom of which, notwithstanding his 
many good parts and his very great talents, he gave 
so notable an example. In this instance he had no 
wish to deny the possibility of marriage between his 
daughter and Philip, but he was not willing to contract 
it without a substantial consideration of property. 

In this case, however, some such consideration appears 
to have been suggested. Philip's uncle, the Earl of 
Leicester, was consulted about it, and perhaps he openly 
gave warrant to an opinion current for the many years 
during which he had no lawful offspring, that his 
promising nephew was to be his heir. At any rate, the 
Earl either honestly entertained the thought, or spoke 
so ambiguously as to give the appearance of consent. 



* State Paper Office, MSS., Irish Correspondence, Elizabeth, vol. 
xxvii. No. !<". 



1569. 
^t. 14. 



J COLLEGE WORK. 33 



Philip, meanwhile, was at Oxford. Early in the new 
year, he must have begun to work vigorously. 

His college of Christ Church had been established, 
in or about the year 1525, by Cardinal Wolsfey, who 
brought students from Cambridge to stock it. The 
splendid building, which it took four years to erect, was 
meant to immortalize the Cardinal's generosity and 
princely bearing.* When Sidney entered it, this 
college was accounted one of the most dignified, and 
perhaps the most industrious, in the university. His 
tutor was Doctor Thomas Thornton, a man of some re- 
pute in his own day for learning and good nature ; " the 
common refuge," he was called, " of young poor scholars 
of great hopes and parts.^'f Sidney appears to have 
received instruction also from a Mr. Robert Dorset.^ 

Of the details of his study there is no record. In 
his case, according to one old writer, " an excellent 
stalk met with the choicest grafts ; nor could his 
tutors pour in so fast as he was ready to receive. All 
sorts of learning were so indifferently favoured by him, 
that each of them might allege arguments that he 
most reflected in his dearness upon them, insomuch that 
those that were to make a meal of learning, and so 

* Wood, History and Antiquities of the Colleges and Halls of 
Oxford (ed. Gutch, 1786), pp. 425, 426. 

t Zouch, Memoirs of the Life and Writings of Sir .Philip Sidney 
(York, 1808), p. 31. Thornton directed to be placed over his tomb in 
Ledbury Church, Hereford, this inscription — " Juventutis lectissimae, 
et inter alios Philippi Sidneii, equitis nobilissimi, accademicae educa- 
tioni praepositus erat." — Willis, Cathedrals, vol. ii. p. 679. 

J Dorset left Oxford in 1576 and retired to Ewelme, in Oxford- 
shire, where he was tutor to Robert, Philip's younger brother. He 
was Dean of Chester in 1579, and died in 1580. — Zouch, p. 376. 

D 



34 A MEMOIR OP Sm PHILIP SIDNEY. [Chap. ti. 

have it for their fixed habitation, envied him who only 
took it in transitu, and, as it were, in complement in 
his passage to higher designs."* Of his achievements 
he hinlself thought less highly, as appears from a 
Latin letter which he wrote to Sir William Cecil on 
the 12th of March, 1569, to this effect : — 

" Your marvelloTis kindnesses, quite undeserved by me, lead me, 
most excellent Sir, though I cannot do it fitly and as becomes me, to 
write this letter to you ; but this certainly I do not that you may see 
what favourable progress I have made in my studies. For on this 
point, to speak truthfully, and not without heavy grief, I must con- 
fess that I can in no way satisfy either your expectation or my own 
desire. But I write this on purpose that I may not seem guilty of 
neglect towards one who has done me so many favours, and so show 
myself altogether unable to emulate his goodness. This is my reason 
then for troubling you, who are so busied about such weighty and 
extensive work, with my poor talk, that you may understand, as far 
as I can explain it, with what grateful memory I recall your kind- 
nesses towards me j and I know that I shall never have any other 
thought than this. And I beseech you that what I am doing with 
the best intention you will receive in good part, and not condemn me 
for boldness and imprudence because I trouble you with a letter in 
order that you may know the mind which I have concerning you. 
The duties and the respect which I owe to you, and which I wish 
most heartily to perform, will bind me closely to you all life long, 
and always I shall set before myself, ever more and more eagerly, to 
find my happiness in deserving well of you. Farewell. 

' ' Your most devoted, 

" Philip Sidney." t 

There is nothing very noteworthy about this letter — 
the first of Sidney's writing which is, as far as I know, 
extant. Written with the nervousness of youth, and 

* The Life and Death of /Sir Phili2y Sidney, prefixed to most early 
editions of the Arcadia. 

t State Paper Office, MSS,, Domestic Correspondence, Elizabeth, 
vol. xlix. No. 63. As this first extant letter of Sidney's writing has 



^f ^4. ] HIS LETTERS TO CECIL. 35 

according to tlie practice of strong praise thought 
necessary in that day, it tells us very little of Philip as 
he really was. It confirms, however, the knowledge 
which we already have of the close intimacy between 
the Sidneys and the Cecils, and the obhgation under 
which the former felt themselves to be with respect to 
the latter. There is another letter to the Secretary, 
written more pleasantly, and dated the 8 th of July. 
In it Philip apologizes for his long silence when he 



never yet been printed, it seems right to give the original in its 
schoolboy Latin : — 

"To the righte honorable Sir William Cecill, knighte, her Maiesties 
principal! Secretarie yeve These : 

" Mirifica tua beneficia in me (nnllo meo merito) cum infatissim^ 
coUato (egregie vir) faciunt ut (licet per tempus commode et uti me 
decet non possim) hasce tamen ad te literas perscribam ; quod non eo 
quidem facio, ut inde queas diiudicare quantos progressus in Uteris 
gratius habeam. Qua in re et vere et non sine gravi dolore meo 
fateor satisfacere me nullo modo posse, vel expectationi tuse vel cupi- 
ditati meoe. Istas ante hoc consilio ad te nunc mitto, ne nomine 
negligentie ei suspectus sim, cujus in me tanta extant beneficia, ut si 
vitam pro eius dignitate profundam, nuUam partem videar tuorum 
meritorum assequutus. Hsec igitur me una causa impulit, hasce ut 
ad te nunc dem, et ut meis ineptus te summis gravissimisque occu- 
pationibus discentum, et implicatum iam interpellem, ut qua possum 
ratione intelligas, beneficia in me tua quam grata memoria colam : et 
ea ex animo meo excidere quam nullo modo sinam. Te vero etiam 
atque etiam rogo, ut quod ab optima voluntate, sit profectum, id in 
bonam partem accipias, nee tarn auJaciam et temeritatem meam repre- 
hendas, quse tibi scribendo molestus sim, quam probes studium ani- 
mumque in te meum, qui officii et observantise erga te mese, quos 
possum libeutissime velim, apud te testes deponere mihi quidem 
perfecto in omnia vitse cui"su, restam erit nulla proposita, quam ut 
quotidie vehementius, de me optume meritum esse loetere. Vale. 

" Tibi deditissimus, 

" Philippus Sidneics. 

"Oxonii, 12« Martii, a" 156S." [0. S.] 

D 2 



36 A MEMOIR OF SIR PTTTLIP SIDNEY. IChai-. ii 

might fairly have been expected to write. He thanks 
Sir WiUiam Cecil for all his favours to his father and 
himself, and ends by saying he would have written 
more, but that he knows not whether the busy Secre- 
tary cares for such long letters.* 

Philip made no direct reference to his projected 
marriage with Anne Cecil. It would hardly have 
been seemly for him to do so ; but it was doubtless in 
his mind. Meanwhile, the scheme was being considered 
and discussed in proper quarters. His uncle, the 
Earl of Leicester, was interesting himself in the affair, 
and even drawing up terms of marriage settlement ; 
while Sir William Cecil and Sir Henry Sidney were 
approving of the same.f But it did not advance very 
rapidly. The young people were young enough to 
wait, and their parents had weightier and more pres- 
sing matters to attend to. 



* British Museum, Lansdoivne MSS. II. No. xi. Art. 77, cited by 
Zoucli. 

t State Paper Office, MS., Irish Correspondence, Elizabeth, vol. 
xxix. Nos. 68 and 74. In the later of these two letters, John 
Thomas, Sir Henry Sidney's treasurer, wrote from Dublin on the 
24th of October, 1569, to Sir William Cecil, as follows : — " I have 
delivered unto my Lord Deputy, after my arrival here, the articles 
agreed upon between my Lord of Leicester and your Honour, who 
doth very well like every of them, and is ready to perform it in 
such sort as by yourself shall be thought meet. I moved him also 
touching the marriage -money, to know whether he would receive it 
himself, or else bestow the same upon your two children, for so I 
promised your Honour I would do. He is very well contented the 
money shall be employed to their commodity, and that he will receive 
no part of it himself, which he promised me he would affirm in his 
next letters written unto your Honour, and also declare in the same 
in what sort part of it should be bestowed. " 



1569- 

ML 



H^is.- ] HIS father's trials. 37 



Sir Henry Sidney, especially, was overwhelmed with 
work. On returning to his duty as Lord Deputy, he 
had found Ireland full of incipient rebellion. His 
generous plans for bettering the state of the people had 
not pleased the haughty and selfish nobles who made 
money by their constant oppressions and lust-begotten 
cruelties, which he described as " too loathsome to be 
written or read.'' When he called upon these men for 
submission, some refused and others gave it grudgingly. 
"When he passed a law by which the iniquitous customs 
were to be abolished, they openly refused obedience 
thereto, and promptly having laid plans for a revolt. Sir 
Edmund Butler, brother to the Duke of Ormond, put 
himself at their head. It is no part of my duty to detail 
this contest. Enough to say that Sir Henry Sidney 
entered manfully into the struggle, and brought it 
to a successful end. But by these cares and labours 
his already weak health was still more shattered, and 
he found even more to contend with in the parsi- 
monious spirit and the negligence of the Court than in 
breaking up a rebel army. At the end of a long letter 
to Cecil, dated the 24th of February, 1570, he referred 
to this, as well as to matters more immediately here 
concerning us. "I feel daily increase of decay in 
health, and yet not half fast enough. For if I were 
stark blind, or stark lame, with quietness of mind I 
should hold myself excused in not doing that which 
now without thank I do. But, oh, my lord, why 
ransack I these tender wounds, especially in your 
presence, since, by good proof, I find that you be 
consentible and compatible with me 1 Well, I will no 



88 A MEMOIR OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. (C'uap. ii. 

more of this now, for I fear I have done too much, yet 
somewhat I confess I am eased by opening this my 
grief 

" Now," he proceeded, " for our particulars, for our 
children. I am sorry that you find coldness anywhere 
in proceeding, when such good liking appeared in the 
beginning. But, for my part, I never was more ready 
to perfect that matter than presently I am ; assuring 
you for my part, that, if I might have the greatest 
princess daughter in Christendom for him, the match 
spoken of between us, on m}^ part, should not be 
broken. Articles, I confess, I received, signed, as I 
remember, by my lord Leicester and you, and well 
allowed by me. But where they be, God knoweth ; 
for Waterhouse is weaned from me, and John Thomas 
is sick.'* The paper I cannot find, but this, for troth, 
Sir, I was never more joyous of the match than I am ; 
but how and which w^ay, never confer with me, while I 
am here, without special direction. For I neither can 
care nor consider, while I here dwell, for wife, child, or 
myself . . , . I pray you commend me most heartily 
to my lady, and to our daughter Anne."t 

" Our daughter Anne,^' wrote Sir Henry Sidney ; 
but, if he meant anything more than playful banter, he 
w^as sadly in error. Later than this letter I can find no 
other reference to the matter. For some unknown 
reason, the coldness deprecated by the Lord Deputy 
was to increase and be permanent. It would have 

* Waterhouse was Sir Henry Sidney's secretary, and Thomas his 
treasurer. 

t Sidney Fapers, vol. i. pp. 43, 44. 



if 55. ] THE END OF THE LOYE-STOEY. 39 

been well if Philip could have married this most love- 
able woman, and could have received from her all wifely 
incitement to live as the hero of his day, with manly 
purity. It would have been far better for Anne, 
could she have been mated before God to a husband 
worthy of her soul, strong to support her gentle 
life, and fill it brimful of the happiness from which 
he could himself have drunk perennial draughts. But 
Mammon ordained otherwise. In December. 1571, she 
was married to Edward de Yere, Earl of Oxford, w^ho 
was a ward of her father's, rich enough to satisfy 
paternal prudence. He was well nigh the gayest and 
well nigh the most brutal of Queen Ehzabeth's cour- 
tiers. Treason in politics often estranged him from his 
sovereign, and treason in morals often estranged him 
from his wife ; but his fair outside got him as often as 
there was need for it, in either case, a woman s pardon. 
When he was young he killed his cook. When he 
was old, and had squandered liis immense patrimony, 
he persuaded Thomas Churchyard to be surety for his 
lodgings, and then ran awa}^, leaving the poor poet to 
hide himself until he could scrape together money 
enough for payment of the bill.''' In a later page we 
shall see him playing the coward, perhaps even trying 
to play the murderer, against Sir Philip Sidney. 

To say that the breaking off of his early love affair 
brought sickness upon Philip would be over-fanciful. 
Certain it is, however, that he was ill just at the 
time when the negociations for the marriage were 

* Cooper, Athence Cantabrigienscs (1861), vol. ii. pp. 389 — 392. 



40 A MEMOIR OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. [Cbap. II. 

terminated. On the 3rd of March, 1570, the Earl of 
Leicester wrote to Doctor Parker, archbishop of Can- 
tei'burj, to ask that leave might be given to his boy 
Philip Sidney, who was somewhat subject to sickness, 
to eat flesh during that Lent.* It was an uncommon 
request, and one which in those transition-days from 
Romanism to Protestantism would have been neither 
made nor acceded to without good reason. 

At this time also we get a pleasant insight into Philip's 
mind, through a letter written by him to Sir William 
Cecil, on the 27th of February. It was about Doctor 
Thornton, his sometime tutor, to whom had been pro- 
mised, upon reversion, the canonry of Christ Church. 
The promise of the place had been procured from Cecil 
and Leicester, wrote Philip, " by the request of my 
friends and his desert towards me, assisted by the 
worthiness of his life and learning.'^ But so soon as 
the vacancy occurred it was seen that Mr. Toby 
Matthew's f friends were using in his behalf " some 
earnest suit, unworthy their callings, by which it 
should seem that they sought rather by spite to 
prevent the one, than honestly to prefer the other/' 
Therefore Philip wrote earnestly entreating that the 
Secretary's word might be kept, that his own strong 
wish might be complied with, and that his tutor might 
receive his due. J 

It is likely that the appeal met with favour. 

* MS. in Bennet College, Cambridge, quoted, witli misreading of 
the year, by Zoucli, p. 28. 

t Father of the Toby Matthew of the reigns of James the First 
and Charles the First. 

X Zouch, p. 377. 



1570. 
^t. 15. 



] COLLEGE TUTOES AND FRIENDS. 41 



Philip, at any rate, appears to have had a fresh tutor 
in Doctor Cooper, a staunch persecuting Protestant.* 
He was member of a commission, which, sitting in 
October of this year, 1570, ejected one John Neale, 
because he refused to attend the celebration of public 
worship according to the reformed ritual. f In these 
years there was much other stir on account of the 
Papists, whom it was thought a duty to rout out 
wherever they might be found. 

During the three years or more of Sidney's sojourn 
in Oxford, he enjoyed the society of several men whose 
names were afterwards to become famous. Chief of 
these were Fulke Greville and Edward Dyer, his firm 
friends throughout life. Greville, born in the same 
year with Sidney, 1554, was connected with him by a 
remote cousinship. He belonged to an ancient family 
residing at Walcot in Warwickshire. He was edu- 
cated at Shrewsbury School, in Philip's company. He 
subsequently came to Oxford, and was entered as a 
student either of Christ Church or of Broaclgates, now 
Pembroke ; but he was soon after transferred to Tnnity 
College, Cambridge, where most of his college educa- 
tion was received, and of which place he was afterwards 
a large benefactor. ;j: Dyer was also of noble family. 
He came from Somersetshire, and was most likely a 
student of Baliol. § 



* Zouch, p. 28. 

t Wood, Annals, p. 169. Cooper was made Bishop of Lincoln at 
the close of the same year. — Wood, Fasti Oxonienses, coL 884. 
t Wood, Athence Oxonienses, vol. i. col. 429. 
§ Ibid., Yol. i. coL 740. 



42 A MEMOIR OF 8111 PHILIP SIDNEY. [Chap. II. 

Eichard Carcw, of Antony, three years older than 
Sidney, was one of his associates. He was a gentle- 
man commoner of Christ Church, and once, when 
Philip's uncles, the Earls of Warwick and Leicester, 
were lodging in Oxford, the young men engaged in 
a public disputation.* The issue is not on record. 
Carew says he was chosen for this contest '*from a 
wrongly conceived opinion touching his sufficiency .'' 
He was a man, however, of rare parts. His diligence 
took him beyond the common circle of studies. He 
lived to publish a translation of part of , Tasso, seven 
years before Fairfax's better known work, and to hold 
honourable rank in his native Cornwall.f 

It would be very easy to string together many other 
names of Sidney's companions. There was another 
Carew, named Peter, a distant cousin to Richard, who 

* Zoucli, p. 33. 

t To Mr. Maclean I am indebted for a copy, communicated to him by 
the present proprietor of Antony, of the curious inscription on Carew's 
tomb. Appended to it is this : — " The verses following were written 
by Richard Carew, of Antony, Esquire, immediately before his death 
(which happened the 6th Nov. 1620), as he was at prayers in his 
study (his daily practice) at Fower, in the afternoon, and being found 
in his pocket, were preserved by his grandsonne, Sir Alexander 
Carew, and according to whose desire they are here set up in memory 
of him. 

" Full thirteen fives of years I toiling have o'erpast, 
And in the fourteenth, weary, entered am at last ; 
While rocks, sands, storms, and leaks, to take my bark away. 
By grief, troubles, sorrows, sickness, did assay : 
And yet arrived I am not at the port of death, 
The port to everlasting life that openeth. 
My time, uncertain. Lord, long certain cannot be. 
What's best to me's unknown, and only known to Thee. 
O, by repentance and amendment, grant that I 
May still live in Thy fear, and in Thy favour dye." 



I 



1570-1571. 
^t. 15-16 



.] COLLEGE FEIEI^DS. 43 



fell fighting in Ireland at the age of about twenty-five. 
He it was who dehvered a pretty speech to Queen 
EHzabeth on the occasion of her visiting Oxford, and 
won her special commendation. Another friend was 
Richard Hakluyt, great as a voyager, but greater as 
the historian of other men's voyages, who was born in 
London in 1553, studied at Westminster School, and 
went thence to Christ Church. The same college 
could also boast the presence of WilHam Camden, the 
antiquarian, two years older than Hakluyt, and, like 
him, a Londoner, who had schooling at Christ's Hos- 
pital and Saint Paul's. Both these men, and many 
others, his inferiors in social influence, looked up to 
Sidney as to a patron, and received from him encourage- 
ment which was continued in after life. 

It is noteworthy that Sidney, apt and diHgent 
scholar though he was, took no degree. I imagine 
that the reason of this was his sudden removal from 
Oxford. During the early months of the year 1571, 
a terrible plague broke out in that city. The inha- 
bitants died in great numbers, and to reside in 
the place seemed to be courting destruction. All 
ordinary and scholastic exercises were by order in- 
termitted, and students were allowed to read in 
country houses under proper tutors, as though they 
were within the university w^alls. It is necessary to 
suppose that Sidney, as well as many others, was 
driven from Oxford by this plague. It is just possible 
that he found a brief refuge in Cambridge.'" Thither 

* Zoucli states as a fact, without giving any authority, that Sidney 
went from Oxford to Cambridge. I do not think this was the case : 



44 A MEMOIR OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. |Chap. II. 

his friend Fulkc Greville either went at that time or 
had gone before. It would be very interesting to 
know that Phihp accompanied him. If so, he must 
then have made tlie acquaintance of some friends, with 
whom he was afterwards intimate. Chief of these was 
Gabriel Harvey, a dry hard student, full of caustic wit, 
but not lacking, when the humour took him, grace 
and tenderness. He hurled fierce, stinging words in 
profusion at any one with whom he chanced to be 
offended, but to all who pleased him he was a warm 
and helpful friend. His genius was wasted in his 
efforts to naturalize the hexameter and other classical 
metres in English, and of this idle attempt he claimed 
to be the originator. Intimate with him were Thomas 
Preston, author of Camhises, " a lamentable tragedy 
mixed full of pleasant mirth,'^ as he described it ; and 
John Still, who probably wrote the curious old comedy 
of Gammer Gurton's Needle. And with these elderly 
men was a young one, Edmund Spenser, destined to hold 
an immeasureably higher place in literature. A 3^ear 
or so older than Sidney, he was already of private note 
as a poet, for there is small doubt, that he contributed 
sonnets and epigrams to the Theatre of Voluptuous 
Worldings, published in 1569. 

I should like to behove that Sidney went to Cam- 
bridge, and formed thus early in life a friendship with 
such men. Their talli would be much about literature, 
of a new epoch in which they were in part the founders. 
If his studies had till now been chiefly limited to classical 

but as the statement has been commonly followed, and as I cannot 
disprove it, I have made reference to it in the text. 



1?~16-17. J HIS FATHERS PEOCEEDIXGS. 45 

lore and to history and philosophy, for which Oxford 
was especially famous, he would have found pleasant 
relaxation in discussing Chaucer and Dante and Petrarch, 
and in following the progress of written thought from its 
English beginning down to the Mirror for Magistrates, 
pubhshed in 1559, and the Palace of Pleasure, which 
appeared about eight years later. 

But it is much more likely that Phihp spent these 
vacant months in the company of his parents, who had 
just returned from Ireland. Sir Henry Sidney, as we 
have seen, had been at his post as Lord Deput}^ since 
the autumn of 1568. He had done all that it was 
possible to do towards quelling the insurrectionary 
spirit of the Irish, and this despite the niggardly way 
in which his sovereign aided his measures. On the 4th 
of May, 1570, he had written from Dublin to Her Ma- 
jesty's Privy Council, begging that he might be recalled 
unless he could be duly supported in his work. In the 
same letter he requested that his wife might be sent 
over to him."^ Probably his ill-health made her com- 
panionship speciall}^ needful. For some reason, at any 
rate, there was urgency in the case. On the 28th of 
the same month he wrote a pressing letter to Edward 
Waterhouse, his agent in London, requesting him to 
hasten the arrival of Lady Sidney, and himself to come 
after lier.f And there is a letter of her own, directed 
to Cecil, and dated the 1st of June, earnestly entreating 
him to speak once more in her suit.J The whole 

* State Paper Office, MSS., Irish Correspondence, Mizabeth, vol. 
XXX. ISTo. 50. H 

t Ibid., vol. XXX, No. 55. % Ibid,, vol, xxx. I^o. 53. 



46 A MEMOIR OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. \CnAv li. 

family, with tlic exception of Pliilip, appears to have 
promptly proceeded to Ireland, and to have stayed 
there some seven months. On the 18th of February, 
1571, the children sailed for England, and on the 25th 
of the ensuing month the Lord Deputy himself fol- 
lowed them." The same causes that had brought him 
home in 1567, now led him to procure a leave of 
absence, which issued in abrogation of his office. The 
Earl of Ormond used all the energy and eloquence of a 
wicked man towards prejudicing the Queen and Court 
against Sir Henry. On this occasion he had special 
reason for his malice, since the chief of the rebels, 
against whom the Deputy had been warring, was his 
own brother, Sir Edmund Butler. Him Sir Henry 
Sidney had hunted zealously from place to place, till at 
last he was captured and sent to Dublin Castle.f 
Ormond managed to . twist the accounts of the Lord 
Deputy's brave and vigorous proceedings against the 
rebels into the appearance of unjust and impolitic 
dealings, so that when he came back to Court he was 
received very coldly by the Queen. His brother-in- 
law, Sir William Fitz William, who sided with Ormond, 

* State Paper Office, MSS., Irish Correspondence, vol. xxxi. No. 
28, and vol. xxxii. No. 2. 

t There had seemed likelihood of one brother being presently- 
lodged in the Tower as a traitor, while the other was being petted at 
Whitehall as a courtier. But Butler had managed to escape from the 
Castle, by means of a cord, which was broken by his weight, so that 
he had tumbled down and got many bruises by the fall, besides 
slipping into a shallow river, where, through a long dark winter's 
night he had to wait, up to his chin in the water, for an opportunity 
of finally running away. — Ibid., Domestic Comespondence, vol. clix. 
No. 1. 



m 16-17. ] HIS father's recompense. 47 

was appointed Lord Deputy in his stead, and he was 
left to perform the less stirring duties of Lord President 
of Wales. 

But Queen Elizabeth seems to have felt that she 
was not treating Sir Henry Sidney as his great ability 
and greater honesty deserved. She could not bring 
herself to abandon her favour towards the brilhant 
representative of the Irish faction, and so, at the 
same time both confess herself in the wrong and lose 
the pleasant company of one of her most splendid 
flatterers. But she was desirous to show kindness to 
his rival, and she showed it in a way thoroughly cha- 
racteristic. A year before she had ennobled Sir 
WilHam Cecil with the title of Baron Burghley, and now 
she proposed to confer a similar honour on Sir Henry 
Sidney. But Cecil was rich, and had the talent for 
acquiring wealth ; whereas Sidney was poor, and not 
given to money-making. It is a fact redounding 
much to his honour that though holding vice-regal 
power in Ireland for so many years, he never followed 
examples that were plentiful in his age, by receiving 
from the native chieftains presents which were virtually 
bribes. Other men found Ireland a mine of wealth ; 
he tells us that he returned from each holding of the 
Lord Deputy's office three thousand pounds poorer than 
when he went.''' He was rich only in self-respect, and 
in the honour of all whose praise was a reward. 

This, however, was not the only wealth needful to 
the dignified possession of a peerage. Therefore, the 

* State Paper Office, Domestic Correspondence^ Elizabeth, vol. clix. 
No. 1. 



48 A MEMOIR OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. F^hap li. 

Sidneys were sorely perplexed by the Queen's intended 
favour. Oil tlic 2nd of May, 1572, Lady Mary wrote 
to Lord Burglilcy a letter which, as giving one of the 
few insights possible to us into that noble lady's 
character, deserves to be quoted almost in full : — 

*' My very good Lord, 

* ' As I may be abashed tbus often to trouble you with my 
bold writing, even so, most honourable, the greatness of my present 
occasion doth enforce me humbly to crave your noble assistance con- 
cerning her Majesty's pleasure for my lord, my husband : who truly, 
my Lord, I do find greatly dismayed with his hard choice, which is 
presently ofi'ered him, as either to be a baron, now called in the 
number of many far more able than himself to maintain it withal, or 
else, in refusing it, to incur her Highness's displeasure. In which 
hard distress, as we may well term it, considering our ill ability to 
maintain a higher title than now we possess, since titles of greater 
calling cannot be well wielded but with some amendment at the 
Prince's hand, of a ruinated state, or else to his discredit greatly 
that must take them upon him, these are most humbly to beseech 
your good noble lordship, even as humbly and earnestly as a poor 
perplexed woman, to see her husband thus hardly dealt withal, as in 
this case I know your lordship is both by himself and other his 
friends made privy unto. And therefore I will omit further troubling 
your lordship to make any new relation thereof, but only that your 
lordship, with my foresaid humble request, will stand so much his 
good lord ; and since no better grace will be obtained to enable us 
better to higher title, yet, that the motion be no further ofi'ered unto 
him. For, certes, right noble and justly renowned, most virtuous 
lord, if it were known unto you the strife and war between his loyal 
and dutiful mind to obey her Majesty's pleasure in such matter her 
Highness can fancy to lay upon him, and his own judgment and 
wants otherwise to hold the credit and countenance the same shaU 
require, I know your honourable mind, in this specially, must needs 
look back nnto his unfortunate state. Wherein, since we hear 
credibly your lordship cannot do us that good which most nobly you 
seek to do us, and that I hope your lordship doth conceive is not 
altogether undeserved of Mr. Sidney, to leave further to trouble your 
lordship with my rude complaint and scribbling, I thus once again 
humbly conclude ; it may please you of your great goodness only to 



m.Vii7. ] HIS father's RECOMPENCE. 49 

stay the motion of this new title to be any fnrtlier offered him, and 
surely we shall think ourselves most bound unto you, and so, as for 
many other great occasions at your lordship's hands obtained only, 
we shall rest ever unfeignedly to pray for your lordship's ever 
increase and continuance in all honour, long and healthful life, to 
God's pleasure and your own noble contentation. From my chamber 
in Court, this second of May. Your lordship's most bounden and 
assured, to my womanish little power, ^^ ,, q< „^ 

This letter, very eloquent notwitlistanding its bad 
grammar, seems to have been successful. We hear no 
more of the intended peerage which, though perhaps 
kindly thought of by the Queen, could have been only 
a mockery without an accompanying grant of property. 
And of substantial gifts Elizabeth had none to offer to 
such honest servants as Sir Henry Sidney or his son 
Philip. There were no more at her disposal than were 
needed for the satisfaction of mere courtiers, hke 
Eobert, Earl of Leicester, and Eobert, Earl of Essex. 

Yet hardly to any family in England was the royal 
favour more due than to the Sidneys. At this time, 
the beginning of the year 1572, Sir Henry was forty- 
three years [old, but hard work in the service of the 
State and a wearing malady had made him almost an 
old man. It was his lot, ever since Elizabeth had 
been Queen, to receive much buffeting, and many 
hard blows both of word and of sword, but little else. 
When there were rebelHons to be quelled he was sent 
to quell them, and he always succeeded ; " but of 
reward," he declared, with reasonable bitterness, " I 
can say no more but as he did who said Foris triu?npho 
et domo ploro.'' \ 

* State Paper Office, MSS. , Domestic Correspondence, Mizaheth, vol. 
Ixxxvi. No. 33. t Ibid., vol. clix. No. 1. 



60 A MEMOIR OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. [Chap.it. 

His wife, also, who seems to have been his junior 
by a year or two, had her own cause of grief. 
She had been beautiful in her day ; she was very 
beautiful now to all who had the skill to see beauty in 
a rich, unselfish, altogether womanly mind, although it 
beamed from cheeks which were scarred and marred, 
and ghstened out of eyes which disease had dulled. 
" When I went to Newhaven,^' wrote Sir Henry Sidney, 
that is, in the autumn of 1562, "I left her a full fair 
lady, in mine eye at least the fairest, and when I re- 
turned I found her as foul a lady as the smallpox could 
make her ; which she did take by continual attendance 
of her Majesty's most precious person, sick of the same 
disease, the scars of which, to her resolute discomfort 
ever since, hath done and doth remain in her face, so 
as she liketh solitariness sicMt nidicoraa; in domicilio 
suo.^'^^ " She chose rather,'^ said her son's biographer 
and friend, " to hide herself from the curious eyes of a 
delicate time, than come upon the stage of the world 
with any manner of disparagement ; this mischance of 
sickness having cast such a veil over her excellent 
beauty as the modesty of that sex doth many times 
upon their native and heroical spirits.'f One would 
have thought that since this heavy affliction came from 
her loving and unselfish attendance upon Queen EHza- 
beth, her Majesty would have done something towards 
lessening the troubles of her life. But Queen Ehzabeth 
was not apt at showing gratitude for kindnesses done 
to her. Therefore, Sir Henry and Lady Mary Sidney 

* State Paper Office, MSS., Domestic Correspondence, Elizabeth, vol. 

t Fulke Greville, Life. 



'i^'i'in.] AT HOME. 51 

were left to get on as best they could in a poverty which 
sprang, not from their own reckless living, but from Sir 
Henry's obligation to spend in the performance of his 
official duties a great deal more money than came to 
him as remuneration from the Crown. But, for all 
that, it is likely that their home was, on the whole, an 
unusually happy one. 

Prior to this winter time of 1571 and 1572, Philip 
had not seen his father for at least two years and a 
half, nor his mother for about a year. I imagine that, 
when forced to quit Oxford, he was glad enough to 
rejoin them at Ludlow. There, perhaps, he spent 
some months, it may be even a whole year.* After a 
course of hard study this would be a pleasant and 
not at all an unprofitable relaxation. There were the 
sacred influences of a true home to be enjoyed, the 
more keenly for recent separation, in the family gather- 
ing at Ludlow or at Penshurst. 



* Among tlie local records extant in Skrewsbury tliere is one from 
wMcli I infer that at about tliis period Sidney visited the scene of his 
early schooling. It includes these items : — 

" Spente upon my Lorde Presydent at his first comynge to this 
towne about the werres, £3 18s. 7d. 

" Spente and geven to Mr, Phillipe Siddney at his comynge to this 
towne with my Lorde Presydent his father, in wine and cakes and 
other things, 7s. 2d." — Owen and Blakeway, History of Shrewsbury, 
vol. i. p. 360. 

The date of the entry is 1574, and the natural inference would be 
that the charge was then incurred ; but as Sidney was in Italy and 
Germany during the whole of that year, we must suppose that the 
expenditure, now brought to account, took place two years or more 
previously. There is no other period in Sidney's life to which it can 
be assigned. The wars which Sir Henry came about were doubtless 
the rebellions in Ireland, which he had just returned from quelling. 



52 A ATEMOIR OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. [Chap. ll. 

Of the children four, besides PhiHp, were at this 
time living. Mary, the eldest girl, — whom the world 
was afterwards to know and honour as the gifted 
Countess of Pembroke, — was a sparkling damsel of 
about sixteen. Between her and her sister Ambrozia, 
who could not be more than eleven or twelve, there 
had been two daughters born. One, named Margaret, 
had ended a little life of about twenty months' dura- 
tion, at Penshurst, in 1558 ; the other had died in 
infancy. Of the sons, Robert — afterwards to succeed 
his uncle, Robert Dudley, in the earldom of Leicester — 
had been baptized at Penshurst, on the 28th of Novem- 
ber, 1563, so that he was doubtless in his tenth year at 
this period of our history. Another boy, Thomas, had 
been born soon after,* but his existence and his name 
are nearly all that we know of him. 

Philip himself was now in his eighteenth yeRY. His 
early biographers tell us that he was possessed of 
every kind of knowledge. At any rate, he had 
acquired his full share of book lore. But in the profession 
for which he was designed something beyond that was 
needful. From works on history, politics, and philo- 
sophy he had studied the theory of government, and 
the character of various peoples : he must now learn 
through experience, must enlarge or correct his present 
knowledge by actual observation. Therefore it was 
determined that he should travel in foreign lands ; 
and we have next to follow him through the three 
years which gave him, perhaps, the best part of his 
education. 

* "Colliiis, Introduction, pp. 97, 114, &c. 



CHAPTER III. 



FOREIGN SCHOOLING. 

1572—1575. 

Of public events there were many to which young 
Sidney^s mind must have been directed during the 
the early part of 1572. Scottish and Irish affairs were 
passing almost every day into a new entanglement, ever 
more comphcated and disastrous than the last. The 
most momentous event of the new season, and one 
discussed in every city, town, and hamlet throughout 
England and Scotland, was the execution of the Duke 
of Norfolk, on the eighth of May. Four years of treason, 
whereby he had sought to release the Queen of Scots 
and make himself her husband, before deposing Queen 
EHzabeth by Popish aid, came on that day to their just 
end. 

Men talked much also of the projected marriage of 
the Queen. In all the thirteen years of her reign the con- 
stant petition of her subjects had been, that she would 
by marrying secure the reasonable hope of a peaceful 
succession to the throne ; and now, at the age of 
thirty-eight, it seemed to be her whim to marry a lad of 
half her age. The proposed husband was the Duke 
of Alen9on, younger brother to Charles the Ninth of 



54 A MEMOIR OF SIR rillLIP SIDNEY. ICuap. lii. 

France. The overtures were made in the autumn of 

1571, Mr. Francis Walsingham, Ambassador at Paris, 
writing home repeatedly to urge the match and to tell 
of the favour with which it was regarded by the Queen- 
mother and the French Court. In the spring, therefore, 
Ehzabeth resolved to send over the Earl of Lincoln, 
Lord High Admiral of the Sea, as Ambassador Extraor- 
dinary, to treat further on the matter and bring back 
an accurate report of the state of the case. 

I do not know what Sidney was doing at this time, 
but it is not improbable that he was at Court waiting 
upon his uncle, the Earl of Leicester, taking no little 
interest in what he saw and heard in the Queen's ante- 
chambers, and on the v/hole finding intense pleasure in 
his first taste of the sugared outside of courtier hfe. 
But wherever he was, the Earl of Lincoln's mission gave 
him an opportunity of seeing life abroad, too favourable 
to be lost. Leicester, therefore, having used his influ- 
ence with the Queen, she granted licence — such are the 
terms of the document — to her trusty and well-beloved 
Philip Sidney, Esquire, to go out of England into parts 
beyond the seas, with three servants, four horses, and 
all other requisites, and to remain the space of two 
years immediately following his departure out of the 
• realm, for his attaining the knowledge of foreign lan- 
guages.* 

The passport was issued on the twenty-fifth of May, 

1572. Next day the brilliant company quitted Lon- 
don,f and they made quick passage to Paris. Sidney 

* Collins, Introduction, p. 98, " ex Origine apud Penshurst. " 
t Stow, Chronicle, p. 672, 



1572, 

ML 



J%J W PARIS. 55 



had particular introduction to the resident Ambassador. 
" I have thought good/' wrote Leicester to Walsingham, 
" to commend him by these my friendly lines unto you, 
as unto one I am well assured will have a special care of 
him during his abode there. He is young and raw, and 
no doubt shall find those countries, and the demean- 
ours of the people somewhat strange unto him ; in 
which respect your good advice and counsel shall 
greatly behove him for his better directions, which I do 
most heartily pray you to fouchsafe him, with any 
other friendly assistance you shall think needful for 
him.'' '" 

Philip was to find the demeanours of the people some- 
what more than strange, and before long he would need 
the utmost help that Walsingham could give him. But 
there was no sign of danger then. There was nothing 
but splendid show and festivity and paying of compli- 
ments. The Earl of Lincoln, after pleasant discourse 
with the Queen-mother Catherine, promptly returned 
to tell Elizabeth that he saw no objection to the match, 
that it was liked by the French Court, and that the two 
arguments against it were very trivial ; Alen^on's youth 
need not be any hindrance, for he was growing older 
every day ; and as for the scars which smallpox had 
left upon his face, they were of no consequence, for he 
would soon have a beard to hide them. 

Sidney did not go back with Lincoln. He remained 
in Paris for three months or more, seeing all that was 
to be seen, and winning firm friends. The first of his 

* Cotton. MSS. in British Museum, Vespasian j F. vi. 83. 



56 A MEMOIR OF SIR PUILir SIDNEY. [Cuap. III. 

new friends was the resident Ambassador. Walsing- 
liam's age was now about six-and-thirty. Educated at 
Cambridge, religious troubles had kept him on the Con- 
tinent through the whole of Queen Mary's reign, and 
he had used the time well in studying the languages 
and institutions of the various States of Western Europe. 
On Elizabeth's accession, he had returned to England, 
had at once obtained a seat in Parliament, and in the 
year 1568 had entered the service of the Crown. After 
other employment, he hJd been sent to Paris in Feb- 
ruary, 1571, where he was now holding office. In 
Sidney he at once felt a strong interest, and between 
them an intimacy sprang up which was afterwards to 
issue in close family alliance. His courtly yet unosten- 
tatious bearing, his extensive learning, and his sound 
practical wisdom, must have made his society very 
agreeable to the young traveller, who would find him 
the best possible informant respecting the places he 
desired to visit. 

More welcome still to Sidney would be the introduc- 
tion given him through the Ambassador to the Court 
gaieties. In Paris there was one blaze of enjoyment. 
The old strife between Catholics and Huguenots seemed 
to have ceased, and everywhere there was peace- 
making. As a lasting knot of friendship, Charles had 
offered to give his sister Margaret in marriage to Henry 
of Navarre, and the young King had come to claim his 
bride. With him were all the Huguenot leaders ; the 
venerable Admiral Coligni, acknowledged head of the 
party ; his son-in-law, Tehgny ; the Prince of Conde, 
only a year older than Sidney; Count Lewis of 



1572. 

mt 



]%] PAEIS GAIETIES. 57 



Nassau, of hardly greater age ; La Rocliefoucauld and 
Du Plessis Mornay, and a score of other men, holding 
foremost rank among the Protestants for their wit, and 
grace, and bravery. With many of them Sidney must 
have been acquainted. We know that Henry of Navarre 
accepted him as a friend, and treated him as an 
honoured equal."^^ 

To the ordinary society of the Court, also, he had 
ready access. The wily, wicked Catherine de' Medici 
must have patronized and done her best to fascinate 
him. The King, doubtless remembering that eleven 
years previously he had been elected by proxy a 
Knight of the Garter, at the same time as Sir Henry 
Sidney, did all possible honour to Sir Henry's son. 
He issued a document to the intent that, considering 
how great the house of Sidney was in England, how it 
had ever held place very near to the English sovereign, 
and desiring well and favourably to treat the young 
Philip Sidney, Esquire, on account of the good and com- 
mendable knowledge which was in him, he purposed to 
retain him as Gentleman in Ordinary of his Bedcham- 
ber.f Appreciating the singular compliment, the young- 
visitor took the prescribed oaths, and entered upon his 
office on the ninth of August. 

This is but one instance more of the consummate 
treachery with which, under cover of pretended Chris- 
tian duty and sacred obligation, the wicked King and 
his more wicked mother, were about to perpetrate the 
most devihsh crime that ever came of human counsel. 

* Fiilke Greville, p. 36. 

t Collins, Introduction^ j). 98. 



58 A MEMOIR OP SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. (Chap. in. 

The young cyo of Sidney was dazzled with the glitter 
and show of distinguished friendship, and Walsingham's 
experience was not less at fault. The Huguenots even, 
though trained to watch for guile, could detect none 
• here. 

Therefore there were jousts and dances, feasts and 
triumphal shows. All shared in the common rejoic- 
ing. Men who before had met each other in stern 
battle, now broke lances together for sport. Men who 
had cursed each other for apostates and idolaters now 
joined hands and thanked Heaven that there was once 
more peace in the land. 

The eighteenth of August was the great day of paci- 
fication. On it two grand processions entered the 
Church of Our Lady. The one included Charles 
and Catherine, all the Royal Princes and all the 
great officers of the Crown, who brought with them 
the Princess Margaret, pale and haggard, decked in 
bridal apparel. The other was led by her intended hus- 
band, the young King of Navarre, with whom were- the 
Admiral and La Rochefoucauld, and other Huguenots. 
Joint Catholic and Protestant rites were performed, and 
in their course one circumstance must have arrested 
Sidney's notice and seemed to him strange indeed. 
When Margaret was asked whether she would take 
Henry for her husband, she made neither answer nor 
bow ; so Charles had to place his hand on the back of 
her head and push it forwards, in forced token of 
assent, she declaring, as presently she did, that she 
could not assent, as she was solemnly pledged to the 
Duke of Guise, Navarre's sworn foe. 



1572. 



.17. ] PARIS HOEEORS. 59 



■ . This, however, was a very ineffective protest. The 
marriage had been performed, and Henry might take 
away his bride, as soon as the festivities were over. 
It is true, the Duke of Guise came with armed men 
into Paris, and by his evil presence threw a gloom over 
the gaiety. But what could be done 1 The King went to 
Cohgni, said that he could not send away his kinsman, 
yet he feared there might be some small disturbance ; — ■ 
did not the Admiral think it would be better to bring 
into the city a few more regiments of soldiers '? The 
Admiral saw no harm, and the Protestants believed 
that care was being taken for their safety. 

Coligni was wounded by the shot of an assassin. It 
was a bad omen. But let the culprit be sought and 
punished ; and let Heaven be praised that this deed was 
not deadly in its issue. And the pleasant sports went 
on for three days more. 

The twenty-third of August was Saturday, and next 
day would be the festival of Saint Bartholomew. The 
city seemed asleep when, at an hour and a half after 
midnight, the Palace clock gave an unwonted sound. 
In an instant lights were placed at every window. 
Soldiers emerged from hitherto dark corners, and thou- 
sands of men, armed and muffled, with the mark of the 
cross fastened to their sleeves, streamed out of the 
houses and joined in the cry, " For God and for the 
King ! '^ Then all was confusion ; half-naked men and 
women rushing out to be slaughtered ; a strange ming- 
ling of prayers and curses, of laughter and wailing. In 
most parts there was indiscriminate butchery of all 
Huguenots. Here and there were little parties of mur- 



60 A MEMOIR OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. [Chap. ill. 

derers who did their work in orderly manner. Que 
such party was headed by the Duke of Guise. He 
hastened to the house of CoHgni, and sent one of his 
men to force an entrance. The fellow, made his way to 
the wounded Admiral's couch and stabbed him. " Is it 
done ? " shouted the Duke from below. " Yes/' it was 
answered. " Let us see the body/' returned the leader. 
So the quivering body was thrown out of window. The 
Duke looked closely at the face, and when he knew that 
it belonged to his old enemy, he raised his foot many 
times and kicked the corpse in the belly. Then he 
hurried off, exclaiming merrily, " Come, comrades ; on 
with your work ! God and the King command it ! " 

There were many more such scenes. Sidney, lodging 
with Walsingham, was safe ; but there were sights sad 
and horrible enough to swim in his eyes for a hfetime. 
Had he looked next morning from the Ambassador's 
house up to the Palace, he might have seen the detest- 
able monarch, who a fortnight before had made him 
Gentleman of the Bedchamber, standing at his bed- 
room window, with a broken arquebus in his hand, 
trying in vain to fire towards the Faubourg Saint 
Germain, where Protestants mostly congregated, and 
shouting, " Kill ! kill ! " 

They did kill. According to the lowest estimate five 
thousand Protestants were murdered in Paris, and 
about a hundred thousand in the provinces. For seven 
days the slaughter lasted, and through that time blood 
flowed in the streets like rain. 

This was the Massacre of Saint Bartholomew. Having 
seen it, Sidney had seen enough of Paris. But had he 



m"i7-S.] I^ GEEMANY. 61 

chosen to remain, the fears of his kindred would have 
withdrawn him. A speedy letter was written, with the 
sanction of the Privy Council of Ehzabeth, and signed 
by Burghley and Leicester, thanking Walsingham for 
the protection he had afforded to the young Enghsh- 
men resident in Paris, and desiring him to use all 
expedition in procuring passports for the removal of 
Sidney and his suite."'' 

Some time in September the party left France. 
Walsingham had fears lest Sidney should suffer harm 
from the evil practices of his attendants, — whatever 
those might be. He therefore put him under the charge 
of Dr. Watson, then Dean, and afterwards Bishop, 
of Winchester. f But the Doctor appears to have soon 
gone his own way, and left Sidney to travel alone. 
Of the details of his travel, through nearly a year, we 
are unfortunately ignorant. All we know is that, 
during the ensuing months, he proceeded through 
Lorraine to Strasbourg, and thence past Heidelberg to 
Frankfort.J 

At Frankfort, he lodged in the house of Andrew 
Wechel, a printer. In those days printing estabhsh- 
ments were the usual resting-places of men of learning 
on their travels ; and Andrew Wechel, conveniently 
residing in an important and central town, was hardly 
more renowned for his careful printing of Greek and 
Hebrew books, than for his generous bearing towards 
the studious men of all lands. § At the time of Sidney's 

* Sept. 9, 1572 ; Collins, Introduction^ p. 99. 

t Walsingliam to Leicester, Oct. 17 ; cited by Zouch, pp. 52, 53. 

X Collins, Introduction, p. 100. 

§ Langueti EpistolcB (ed. 1776), pp. 173, 258, 275, 284. 



62 A MEMOIR OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. [Chap. ill. 

visit, there was also staying with him Hubert Languet ; 
and between the two visitors a warm and lasting friend- 
ship sprang up. 

Languet was indeed a man whom Philip might be 
proud to have for a friend. Born in 1518, he was a 
native of Viteaux in Burgundy. He had occupied his 
youth with thoughtful travel and diligent study, and in 
1547 he had become Professor of civil law in the Uni- 
versity of Padua. But two years later, when on a visit 
to Wirtemberg, he met with Melancthon and became 
warmly attached to him. The skilful arguments and 
fair example of the most genial of all the great Re- 
formers conquered both his heart and his intellect. 
That he might live near to his new teacher, he resigned 
his professorship at Padua ; and — which was a more 
important measure — he soon afterwards publicly re- 
nounced his connection with the Church of Rome. His 
great learning and greater shrewdness, soon secured for 
him the prominent place he now held among Protes- 
tants. Through all mazes of European politics his 
clear observation rarely missed the clue ; and of all 
plots and counterplots in which the friends and foes 
of his party were mixed up, he made himself master. 
With almost every leading Protestant he was acquainted, 
and especially with Philip du Plessis Mornay, a lead- 
ing man among the Huguenots.* At the time of the 

* It is doubtful wliether he or Du Plessis, or some one else, was 
author of the celebrated Vindicioe contra Tyrannos, Auctore Stephano 
Junio Bruto Celta (1579), in which the doctrine is eloquently laid 
down that kings who despoil the Church of God, and the inheritance of 
His saints, who sanction idolatries and blasphemies, and who violate their 



^f ^is ] HUBEET LANGUET. 63 

Saint Bartliolomew Massacre he was hiding in Paris, 
having gone thither, on behalf of the German Princes, 
to present an address to the French King.* He was 
now in Frankfort, serving as the secret Minister of the 
Elector of Saxony .f 

Between him and Sidney there was just that pro- 
portion of hkeness and unlikeness requisite to a firm 
friendship. The ripened man of fifty-four found a 
dehghtful freshness in a youth of eighteen who was 
vigorously learning to apply in life the lessons of 
the schools. The youth was gladly strengthened by 
the experienced and lettered talk of a man who knew 
all that was then happening worth note in the Chris- 
tian world, and could tell more than most men would 
ever hope to read of bygone times. Thus — writing 
nine years later, under pastoral image, and speaking of 
himself as Philisides singing to his sheep — Sir Philip 
Sidney acknowledged his debt : — 

*' The song I sang old Languet had me taught — 
Languet the shepherd best swift Ister knew, 
For clerkly reed, and hating what is naught, 

For faithful heart, clean hands, and mouth as true. 
With his sweet skill my skilless youth he drew 
To have a feeling taste of Him that sits 
Beyond the heaven, far more beyond our wits. 

" He said the music best those powers pleased 
Was jump accord between our wit and will, 
Where highest notes to godliness are raised, 



people's liberties, may, and ought to, be deposed by the constitutional 
action of their subjects, though not by the private hand of the assassin : 
a famous book among Englishmen of Cromwell's day. 

* Langueti Epistolce, p. 19. 

t Fulke Greville, p. 8. 



64 A MEMOIR OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. [CnAP. iir. 

And lowest sink not down to jot of ill. 

With old true tales he wont mine ears to fill, 
How shepherds did of yore, how now they thrive, 
Spoiling their flock, or while 'twixt them they strive." * 

In the enjoyment of Languet's friendship, Sidney 
appears to have spent some time at Frankfort ;f and 
when the minister's business took him early in the 
summer of 1573 to Vienna, he went thither with him.j 
Languet showed him all that was to be seen at the 
Court of the Emperor Maximilian the Second, intro- 
duced him to many of his friends, and, as we may 
well imagine, gave him all necessary good advice. 
Sidney's route is not everywhere clearly traceable ; 
but he seems, at this time, not to have remained 
long in Vienna. He wished to visit other regions. 
In August or September, he left Languet, intending 
to make only a three days' journey to Presburg ; 



* Arcadia, (10th ed. 1755), Book iii. pp. 89T, 398. 

t He was in Frankfort on the 20th of May, 1573, as appears from 
a bill of exchange which he drew, on that day, upon "Mr. William 
Blount, Master of the Counter in Wood Street." The document runs 
thus : — "On the last day of May, next coming, I pray you to pay by 
this, my first bill of exchange, my second not being paid before, unto 
Reynold Dreling, or the bringer hereof, one hundred and twenty 
pounds, sterling money current, for merchandize ; and is for the 
value here in Frankfort by me received of Christian Rolgin for 
mine own use. At the day fail not, but make good payment. 
And so God help you. Tour loving friend, Philip Sidney." — 
Zouch, p. 82. 

% Fulke Greville says, carelessly, that Languet threw aside his 
work and spent the whole three years of Sidney's stay on the continent 
in acting as his tutor and companion. This, however, is clearly a 
mistake. During a large part of one year there was no acquaintance 
between them, and during another they corresponded, the one being 
at Vienna, the other in Italy. 



15 



'% ] IN VIENNA AND HUNGARY. 65 



but once on the move, he stayed away for several 
weeks, visiting other parts of Hungary. "^^ Languet, in 
a pleasant letter, complained that he had cheated him 
by this unexpected absence. "Like a bird which has 
broken the wires of its cage, you make merry, unmindful 
perhaps of your friends, and heedless of the host of dan- 
gers which are incident to such a mode of travelling. I 
praise your desire of seeing the cities and the customs 
of many nations, for in that way we train our judgment, 
and thereby we gain a proper love for our own quiet hfe ; 
but I am sorry that you have no one with you who might 
discourse to you in the course of your journey, or in- 
struct you about the manners and institutions of the 
people whom you visit, introduce you to learned men, and, 
if need be, serve as your interpreter. I could have pro- 
cured you such a companion, if you had told me what 
you were going to do.'^f Perhaps Philip was best 
alone. He could well spare to miss some knowledge 
for lack of a tutor, in consideration of the greater 
worth to him of experience for which he had gone 
out to make his independent bargain. 

He appears to have returned to Vienna in October, 
where he spent about another month with Languet, 
and whence he then started on a longer journey. He 
must go to Italy, the land richest of all in glorious asso- 
ciations, ancient and modern. Languet was loth to part 
with him, gave him much advice and exacted from him 
many promises ; '\. — but he could not hinder him from 
doing what so manifestly was to his advantage. There- 

■^ Laiigueti Epistolce (ed. Hailes, 1776), p. I. 

t Ibid., pp. 1, 2. t Ibid., pp. 7, 99. 



C6 A MEMOIR OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. [CuAr.IlI. 

fore, early in November, in company with his attend- 
ants, he set off on horseback for Venice."" Tears were 
shed at parting,f and a brisk correspondence was deter- 
mined upon in the interests of friendship. Languet and 
Sidney would write to each other — of course in Latin 
— once every week,t and Languet steadily kept to the 
arrangement. Sidney does not seem to have written 
so often ; and of the letters which he did write several 
have been lost sight of or lost. But those portions of 
the correspondence which are extant are of very great 
value, and I shall make large quotations from them. 
At no other period of Sidney's life have we such clear 
insight into the workings of his mind and the influence 
upon it of outside events. 

They use more freely than is now usual, formal 
exaggerations in the phrase of friendship. No love- 
oppressed youth can write with more earnest passion 
and more fond solicitude, or can be troubled with 
more frequent fears and more causeless jealousies, 
than Languet, at this time fifty-five years old, shows in 
his letters to Sidney, now nineteen. Sidney, on the 
other hand, is not wanting in maidenlike bashfulness ; 
and often he takes pleasure in teasing his old friend, 
knowing that the strong bond of love which is between 
them cannot be weakened by such play. 

Languet's first letter opens with a reproach. " From 
how much care and anxiety, and even dread, would 
you have saved me, if you had only written once or 
twice on your journey ! I did not want lengthy letters, 

* Correspondence of Sidney and Languet (ed. Pears, 1845), p. 204. 
t Langueti Epistolce^ p. 3. % Correspondence, p. 203. 



1573. 
Mt. 19. 



J HIS COKRESPOKDENCE WITH LANGUET. 67 



but just a few words, as ' We have reached this place 
safely to-day/ or something hke that. Have you for- 
gotten how earnestly I begged for so much when you 
were going away ? But you will say, ' It matters little 
for you to hear so soon : I shall write when I get to 
Padua or Yenice/ You ought to have done both.'^''^ 
Next week he writes still more complainingly, " I 
wonder greatly what can cause in you such persevering 
silence, and I know not why I have deserved such 
treatment from you. If a whole month passes without 
my hearing from you, I shall be obliged to think that 
something very dreadful has happened." f 

Thus Sidney replies : "I do not say, ' It matters little 
for you to hear so soon ; ' for I know that * love is 
full of anxious fear.' The truth is, I could find no 
one who w^as going to Vienna. But since you quietly 
charge me with some loosening of the love which I bear 
and ever shall bear towards you and your wonderful 
goodness, I must, while I admit your kind feeling, very 
seriously beg you always to feel sure that, whatever 
distance may be between us, I am not so full of 
childish folly, or of womanish inconstancy, or of brutish 
ingratitude, as not eagerly to seek your friendship, and 
not to hold it when I have won it, and not constantly 
to feel thankful that I have it.'^J 

But the friendship between the two showed itself in 
nobler things than mere protestations and asiurances of 
mutual love. Languet's great influence upon him was 



* Langueti EpistolcR, p. 2. 

X Corresjpondence, p. 203. 

r 2 



OS A MEMOIR OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. [c.iap. ni. 

apparent in all Sidney's after life. There was exquisite 
tenderness in the care taken by the old man of his 
pupil ; believing that he had a sacred trust to fulfil, 
he spared no labour, and cared not what sacrifice he 
made, if only he could ripen into perfect fruit the fair 
blossom over which he felt bound to keep watch. Philip 
gladly accepted the protection, gave good heed to the 
counsel offered to him, and referred in all his needs 
and difficulties to the friend who rejoiced to give him 
help. 

On going into Italy, Languet felt that his young 
friend was running a risk. At that time there was 
especial danger. Even the hopeful state of Protestantism 
occasioned great fears on behalf of individual Protes- 
tants. "Satan," wrote Languet in the first of the 
letters just quoted from, " is beginning to gnash his 
teeth, because he sees that his kingdom is tottering. 
For neither in France nor in Belgium do things happen 
to his liking ; and we cannot doubt that he will rouse 
his agents to greater cruelty. Till now this has been 
their only way of upholding his empire, — and I have no 
question that if you entrust yourself to their honour, 
you will be in greater risk than you would have been a 
few years back. Bear with the love which makes me 
so often force this upon your thoughts.^' ^ 

Never to be beyond reach, then, of this good friend's 
help, Sidney rode out of Vienna. With him were three 
companions, if not more. One of them was Lewis 
Bryskitt, who has told us how, at this time, 

* Langueti Epistolce, p. 3. 



^f 19. ] HIS COMPANIONS IN TRAVEL. 69 

" Through many a hill and dale, 
Through pleasant woods, and many an imknown way, 
Along the banks of many silver streams 
He with him went ; and with him he did scale 
The craggy rocks of th' Alps and Appenine ; 
Still with the muses sporting, while those beams 
Of virtue kindled in his breast. 
Which after did so gloriously forth shine.'' * 

Bryskitt afterwards attained some distinction among 
men of mark. He became clerk to Sir Henry Sidney's 
Council in Dublin, and held a like trust under Lord 
Grey of Wilton, the next Irish Deputy. He was a friend 
of Spenser's and, among his works was a translation of 
Baptista Giraldi's Discourse of Civill Life, containing 
the Ethike Part of Moral PhilosopJiie ; a valuable book 
to which he was attracted by the study of the philoso- 
phical writings of the Italians, for which this tour gave 
him opportunities.f Another of the party was Griffin 
Madox, a thorough and very amusing Welshman, but 
only on that account a more trustworthy attendant 
upon Sidney, whom he seems to have served to the end 
of his life, if Sidney's third companion, was Thomas 
Coningsby, a youth of about equal rank with our hero, 
whose cousin, Philippa Fitz-William, he subsequently 
married. 

Coningsby was a good friend to Sidney as long as 
he lived ; but there was near chance of their intimacy 
being broken in the course of the journey to Italy, 

* A FastoraU Aeglogue upon the Death of Sir Fhilip Sidney, 
Knight, 11. 85—92. 

t London, 1606, quarto, p. 24 ; Cf. Todd, Life of Spenser (ed. of 
1861), pp. xxvi, xxvii 

:|: Corre8ponde7ice, p. 209, etc. ; Sidney Papers, vol. i, p. 112. 



70 A MEMOIR OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. fCnAP. ill. 

The circumstance, of small value in itself, aptly illus- 
trates Philip s temperament, quick and fiery, and there- 
fore often likely to bring him into mischief. The 
party put up for a night at some inn on the road, and, 
as has been no uncommon thing ever since the begin- 
ning of inns, were cheated by the inn-keeper. The 
fellow managed to get his bill paid twice, and Sidney, 
not knowing the true state of the case, but finding his 
purse emptier than he thought for, charged Conijigsby 
with pilfering the money. It was an awkward blunder 
to make, and dehcate management was needed before 
proper explanation restored peace. The time had then 
gone by for getting the money back from the real 
thief.* 

At Venice, and in journeying thence to other parts 
of Italy, Sidney spent about eight months. He 
could not .have chosen his head-quarters more fitly. 
Venice, the Queen of the Adriatic, was then at the 
height of her glory. Older than most of the medi- 
aeval cities of Italy, she had quietly worked her own 
way through centuries, caring little for the political 
struggles that went on around her. Placed in the way 
of naval greatness, she had declared her strength in 
contests with every State which showed any vigour of 
rivalry. Wealth squandered by other nations in cru- 
sades, she had gathered up and stored in her coffers. 
Fully alive to all changes in foreign politics, whereby 
her welfare was affected, she had taken only partial 
interest in the internal affairs of Italy. She had been 
neither Guelf nor Ghibelin. She had cared nothing for 

* Langueti Epistolm, p. 8. 



if 19. ] YENICE. 71 

the Florentine disputes which made Dante an exile, nor 
for the Roman struggles towards liberty under Rienzi. 
Now, indeed, in Sidney's day, when all other Italian 
States were sunk in the worst degradation, there were 
signs of free life in Venice, and forces were silently 
preparing for one staunch battle in the cause of free- 
dom. But Shakespeare's picture was a true one. The 
Eialto was the heart of Venice, and Antonios and Shy- 
locks made up the body of her citizens. Hither came 
men from all parts of the world, chiefly on errands of 
merchandize ; though, being assembled, they knew how 
to secure other advantages of intercourse. Men of science 
and letters found here fellow workmen with whom they 
could sympathize and from whom they could learn. 
Arts, newly risen to unrivalled eminence, here had 
better patrons and more genial critics than were to be 
known elsewhere. Students of theology received here 
more kindly regard than could be met with in other 
parts ; and here they were free, without fear of perse- 
cution, to set forth what opinions they liked. Thus 
Venice was full of turmoil, and in her broad streets 
and splendid mansions were to be seen representatives 
of almost every nation in Europe. 

Of all this excitement Sidney was no dull spectator. 
With some of the chief people in the city he made 
prompt acquaintance. From Vienna he brought letters 
of introduction to Arnaud du Ferrier, the French Am- 
bassador, and Francis Perrot, a French resident in 
Italy.* Although not strictly Protestants, both were 

* Correspondence, p. 203. 



72 A MEMOIR OF SIR rillLlP SIDNEY. [Chap. Ill 

zealous cliarapions of religious liberty, and associates 
with Henry of Navarre. Both also were friends of 
Peter Sarpi, who thirty-three years later was to fill the 
world with astonishment at the victorious battle waged 
by him for Venice against Paul the Fifth and all the 
priestly pomp of Rome. The son of a poor tradesman, 
he was now a Servite friar, — the Servites being a branch 
of the Augustine order. He was a little man, of deli- 
cate appearance, fond of study, but shy and silent. He 
was great in the scholastic disputations of his day, and 
in all linguistic subtleties, but greater as a master of 
natural science. In astronomy, optics, hydraulics, 
anatomy, chemistry, botany, and mineralogy, he was 
accounted to have rare knowledge. In a vague way he 
seems to have anticipated our own Harvey in his dis- 
covery of the circulation of the blood, and to have 
preceded his friend and pupil Galileo, in the invention 
of the thermometer. Liberal beyond his day, he 
chose his friends without regard to their theology. 
With Jewish schohasts and English Protestants he 
was on intimate terms ; and from the strangers who 
visited Venice he was eager in drawing informa- 
tion as to the customs, laws, religion, and natural 
productions of foreign countries. I do not knowj 
but it is more than probable, that there was friend- 
ship between him and Sidney, who was his junior by a 
year. 

But there are other men of whose intimacy with 
Phihp there is not a doubt. He may not have gained 
introduction to Titian, at this time an old man ; but he 
was acquainted with Titian s greatest pupils, Tintoretto, 



^^'Iq ] LIFE IN VENICE. 73 

now sixty years old, and Paul Veronese, whose age was 
forty /'^ A friend of a different order was Count Philip 
Lewis of Hannau, a young man about as old as Sidney, 
but whose zeal and courage had made him already 
famous throughout Europe, f Sidney made other 
acquaintances, but it is not necessary to enumerate 
them. He had access to the society of haughty 
senators, and sat at the tables of splendid merchants. 
"Yet I would far rather have one pleasant chat 
with you, my dear Languet," he wrote, "than enjoy 
the magnificent magnificencies of all these magni- 
ficoes."! 

With Venice, indeed, he was not so well pleased as 
he had expected to be.§ He thought of staying there 
only a few weeks, and then of going on to Padua, where 
there were better opportunities of study. || He was 
detained for a little while by business,! but the delay 
did not keep him from his books. " Just now,'^ he 
wrote on the 19th of Pecember, "I am learning 
astronomy, and getting a notion of music. I practice 
my pen only in writing to you ; but I find that 
practice does anything but make perfect. The more I 
write, the worse I get to write. Do, pray, send me 
some rules about composition, and at the same time 
put in those bits of advice which you said you would 
keep till you should see me again ; for I know that 
your counsel can never be exhausted, and there are 
faults enough in me to deserve endless admonitions." 

* Correspondence, pp. 208, 211. § Langueti Upistolce, p. 9. 
t Langueti EpistolcB, p. 6. || Correspondence, p. 204. 

X Correspondence, p. 204. \\ Langueti Epistolce, p. 27. 



7t A MEMOIR OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. [Chap. in. 

And further on ; " If you can pick them up in Vienna, 
I wish you would send me Plutarch's works trans- 
lated into French. I would willingly pay five times 
their value for them." In return he proposed to send 
to his friend some books which he had had great plea- 
sure in reading. They were Tarchagnota's History of 
the World ; a collection of Princely Letters ; another, 
of Letters by Thirteen Illustrious Men, of whom Boc- 
caccio was one ; a Treatise on Mottoes, by Ruscelli, the 
friend of Tasso ; and two Histories of Venice.* I 
give the titles of these books since they indicate the 
course of Sidney's thought. He was making close 
study of Italian history and literature, with special 
attention to the antiquities of the town in which he 
lodged. 

Languet could not have cared much for these books, 
as he took no notice of Phihp's offer ; but to other 
parts of his letter he replied very sensibly on New 
Year's Day, " You ask me how you ought to form 
a style of writing. In my opinion you cannot do 
better than give careful study to all Cicero's letters, 
not only for the sake of the graceful Latin, but also on 
account of the weighty truths which they contain. 
Nowhere is there a better explanation of the way in 
which the Roman Repubhc was overthrown. Many are 
fond of choosing one of his letters and turning it into 
another language, and then, without the book, of re- 
translating it into Latin, so as to compare the two 
versions, and mark the force of Cicero's expressions. 
But take care of slipping into the heresy of those who 

* Correapondencej pp. 204, 205. 



it.'to. ] HIS STUDIES. 75 

believe that Ciceronianism is the summum bonum, and 
who will spend a lifetime in aiming after it/' In so say- 
ing Languet was enforcing the wise protest of Erasmus 
against the classical pedantry of the day. He went on 
to state that, for all the money in the world, he could 
not buy a copy of Plutarch, though perhaps he might 
borrow one. '' But when you begin to read Cicero's 
letters, you will hardly need Plutarch. I approve of 
your giving some study to astronomy ; for those who 
are ignorant of it cannot understand cosmography. 
And they who read history without knowledge of cosmo- 
graphy seem to me to be just groping in the dark."* 

Worthy to be quoted also, for the sake of their 
reference to Sidney's studies, are some remarks made 
by Languet three weeks later. " You have done 
well," he wrote, "in learning the rudiments of astro- 
nomy, but I do not advise you to work much more at 
that science, since it is very difficult, and will be of 
small value to you. I know not whether 3^ou are wise 
in turning your attention to geometry. It is a fine 
study, and well deserving of thoughtful application. 
But you must consider what are your prospects, and 
how quickly you will have to abandon this literary 
ease ; and consequently you ought to give to those 
matters which are absolutely needful all the little 
time you have. I call those things needful of which 
it is discreditable for a man of high rank in life 
to be ignorant, which, by and by, will perhaps serve 
you for ornament and resource. Geometry, it is true, 

* Langueti EpistolcE, pp. 18, 10. 



76 A MEMOIR OP SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. [Chap. in. 

may be of great worth to a general in fortifying and 
investing towns, in measuring camps, and in every kind 
of construction ; but a great deal of time is needed to 
acquire enough knowledge of it to be really useful ; 
and I think it very foolish to get a smattering of all 
sorts of subjects, for show and not for use. Besides, 
you have too little fun in your nature, and this is a 
study which will make you still more grave. It re- 
quires close application of thought, and thus wears out 
the lively parts of the mind, and greatly weakens the 
body ; and you know that you have not a morsel too 
much health. Greek literature, again, is a very beau- 
tiful study ; but I fear you will have no leisure to 
follow it through, and whatever time you give to it you 
steal from Latin, which, though less elegant than 
Greek, is far better worth your knowing. So I know 
not what to advise you. I only beg you to learn those 
things which are most necessar}^''* ^ 

Sidney was now acquainted with four languages, 
Latin, Italian, French, and his native English. Languet 
nrged him to add German to the number,t but he found 
it too harsh and unpronounceable to suit his taste.J 
He wished to learn Greek chiefly for the sake of 
studying Aristotle, whose works, especially the Politics, 
he reckoned of great value. The whole ground of 
ethical and metaphysical philosophy was very attractive 
to him. Indeed, he seems to have given thought to 
every branch of the knowledge common in his day. 



* Langueti Ej^istolce, pp. 25, 26. f Ibid., p. 26. 

X Correspondence, p. 208. 



At't9. ] HIS STUDIES. 77 

His constant application to hard work roused the fears 
of even hard-working Languet. *'I do beg you/' he 
wrote, ^' to take care of your health, and see that you 
do not ruin yourself with over-work. A brain too 
much taxed cannot live long, and a healthy mind is 
good for nothing unless lodged in a healthy body.^^* 
We have just seen him also urging his pupil to 
choose subjects which would encourage, instead of les- 
sening, a merry disposition. Sidney replied, " I must 
admit that I am more sober than my age or busi- 
ness require ; but I have always found that I am 
never so little troubled with melancholy as when 
my weak mind is employed about something particu- 
larly difficult."! 

This letter was written from Padua, whither Philip had 
removed on the 14th or 15th of January.if He made 
a stay of about six weeks, using profitably the seclu- 
sion which was possible in the quiet university town. 
While there, Languet wrote to him, begging him to 
have his portrait painted for him. The fond old man 
enclosed some complimentary verses, the first effort at 
rhyme, he said, which he had ever made in his Hfe ; 
and of these he wished a copy to be taken and set 
under his picture. § "I am very glad," Sidney wrote 
back with proper modesty, " that you have asked me 
so urgently for my likeness, since it tells me what 
sweet thoughts you have about me, and how much you 
love me. Of course you should have it, even if 
there were none of that true and full-grown friendship 

* Langueti Epistolce, p. 26. J Ibid., p. 206. 

t Correspondence, p. 208. § Langueti Epistolot, p. 2T. 



78 A MEMOIR OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. [Chap. III. 

between us, which surpasses all the other relations of 
life, just as the warm bright sun obscures all fainter 
stars. You might fairly claim far greater things than 
this, on account of the many kindnesses which I owe 
to you. So, as soon as I get back to Venice, I will 
employ either Paul Veronese or Tintoretto, both of 
whom are prime masters of their art. But about those 
verses you have written ; — certainly it is a glorious 
thing to be praised by one who has earned so much 
praise, and I prize your compliments as fresh proofs 
of your undying love ; but really I cannot do such 
a bare-faced thing as to have an advertizement of 
merits which I do not truly possess, placed at the 
foot of my portrait. Ask anything else that you like, 
and you know how gladly I will do it, if it is at all 
possible, but do not ask this."* 

Sidney did not wish to perpetuate such high-flown 
language as his friend indulged in. In return for 
it, however, he sent back high encomiums and assu- 
rances of his zealous love. " I pray you,'^ he wrote on 
the 11th of February, " tell me all about your own con- 
cerns, as well as any pubhc news that transpires. For 
in your letters I seem to have a complete picture of 
this age of ours, an age which is like a bow too long 
and too much bent, and which will presently break 
unless it is unstrung. Therefore, my dear Hubert, I 
want you to write down all the thoughts which you 
dare put on paper. Your letters are delightful to me 
for all sorts of reasons, but the chief reason is just 
this, that they are yours.^f 

* Corresjwndcnce, p. 209. t Ibid., p. 210. 



iEtJi9. ] HIS WANDEEINGS IN ITALY. 79 

Sidney was in Venice again by the 26th of Feb- 
ruary, among, other things sitting for the promised 
portrait, which was being taken by Paul Veronese/'^ 
At "^about this time he visited Genoa, and in the middle 
of April he returned to Padua for a month or so 
more.f The remaining two months of his Italian resi- 
dence were probably spent wholly in Venice, much to 
Languet's discontent, who thought that Sidney had 
had enough, and more than enough, of Venetian 
spectacles.]: 

It was not that the blunt reformer was altogether 
averse to spectacles. He was extremely anxious that 
Philip should join with him in witnessing one of un- 
usual splendour. This was on the occasion of Henry, 
the Duke of Anjou, being installed as King of Poland. 
Wonderful preparations were made, and Languet urged 
his friend to be present at it, both for the pomp and 
glitter he would see, and for the opportunity that 
he would find in it of forming friendship with great 
men of various nations. § But Sidney did not care 
much for it. He preferred to stay in Italy, carry- 
ing on his studies, strengthening his friendship with 
those men whom he already knew, and especially 
with the Count of Hannau. His journeys from one 
part of Italy to another seem to have been in company 
with the Count , and his chief reason for loitering so 
long in those regions was that he might enjoy the 



"^ Correspondence, p. 211. i: Langueti Epistoloa, p. 99. 

t Ibid., pp. 215, 218. § Ibid., p. IT, &c. 



80 A MEMOIR OF SIR nilLIP SIDNEY. [Chap. iii. 

pleasure and the safety of the same nobleman's 
society. 

On many grounds Languet disliked this long stay. 
He was anxious to regain the companionship of his 
pupil — his son — his boy, as he variously called Philip. 
He was full of fears lest harm should come to him, lest 
he should have his weak health ruined by the cHmate, 
or his life endangered through the hatred of all Catho- 
lics to the English, or his moral and religious principles 
poisoned by the evil influences surrounding him. This 
was the burden of many of his letters. Sometimes he 
wrote playfully, and used coaxing language ; at other 
times his words were stern and reproachful. In April, 
as we have seen, Sidney paid a running visit to Genoa. 
" If I thought that my counsel had any weight with 
you," declared Languet, '' I should urge you, as I have 
done over and over again, to keep clear of those places 
which are under Spanish rule ; for the Spaniards, with 
good reason, hate the English, and Genoa is so bound up 
with Spain that you cannot possibly be safe there. 
But I suppose you find pleasure in seeing so many 
vessels being made ready for war, or else there is sweet 
music to you in the clank of the chains of the poor 
galley slaves ; or is it that you wait in the hope of 
seeing this Don John of Austria as he passes back into 
Spain '? "* 

Sidney wished naturally to go on to Rome. But of 
that Languet would not hear. Having exacted a 
pledge before they parted in Vienna, he now said he 

* Langueti Epidolct;, pp. 58, 59. 



1574. 
^t. 19. 



] languet's anxieties. 81 



would allow every other promise to be broken if only 
this one were kept.* The sturdy Huguenot was afraid 
that the gorgeous ceremonies of the Catholic Church, 
attractive to his charge, would draw him from the 
purer and more austere faith. Yet there could 
hardly have been reason for the fear. Not long before, 
Sidney had been present at the services of the Church 
of Our Lady in Paris, and had seen their issue in the 
Saint Bartholomew massacre ; there could not now, 
therefore, be much allurement for him in the most 
imposing spectacles at Saint Peter's Cathedral. But 
Languet had his way, and Sidney never went to 
Rome. 

As the summer advanced Languet found a new 
reason for Phihp's return to Vienna. " 1 fear that you 
will suffer harm from the great heat," he said, on the 
13th of June, "since you are of such tender constitu- 
tion; and knowing, as I do, how eagerly, almost intem- 
perately, you eat all sorts of fruit. I warn you of fever 
and dysentery if you stay there during the summer." f 
Nor was the warning quite unnecessary, it would seem, 
for in July Sidney was seriously ill, suffering from severe 
pains in his head which threatened to issue in pleurisy, 
and which were thought to be the result of drinking too 
much water. " This, my darhng Sidney, I foresaw and 
dreaded, and for that reason I begged you not to stay 
over Midsummer. If you love me, show some care for 
your health, and on this matter follow your own sense, 
rather than trust to other people. If any mischance 
befel you, I should be the most wretched man in the 

'^ Langueti Epistolce, pp. 7, 99, &c. f Ibid., p. 72. 



82 A MEMOIR OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. ICha... hi. 

world ; for there is nothing to give me the least plea- 
sure save our friendship, and the hope I have of 
your raanhood. The ruin of my native land, and 
the calamities which have lately overtaken all my 
friends, make life a great deal worse to me than 
death." * 

Languet often wrote in this strain. He was alto- 
gether weary of the world, and, though still doing all 
that he could for society, esteemed his efforts useless. 
Sidney, he thought, with the prospect of many active 
years before him, was bound to be hopeful, to be very 
careful of his life and to use every nerve in fitting him- 
self for manly fight in the cause of liberty, both civil 
and religious — but what hope was left for himself? 
For the young man, he said, he was afraid ; but for 
himself he had nothing to dread. " My life is of no 
good to any one, and death will only rid me of the 
miseries in which I live. What can be more wretched 
for a man, who has any feeling of humanity in him, 
than to study such crimes as have through the 
last ten or tAvelve years been committed, as are 
still being committed, in my ill-fated France and in 
Belgium V'f 

To these complainings Philip returned a very charac- 
teristic answer, aptly expressive of his brave yet modest 
temper. He said, " This last letter of yours has 
troubled me so ! I can hardly collect my thoughts to 
answer it. Oh, my dear Languet ! can it be that you 
are unhappy, you whom all with a spark of virtue left 
in them join to love and honour '? If any work of mine 

* Langueti Ejnstolce, p 99. t Ibid., p. 50 



^fi9.] A YOUNG POLITICIAN. 83 



could help you at all, you know how I should rejoice to 
do it ; for I have nothing which is not more rightly 
yours than mine." * He went on to show how the state 
of Europe yet left room for hope. The cause of Protes- 
tantism was advancing, and even persecution proving 
itself useful. In Belgium, troubles enough had seemed 
to come. The Duke of Alva had slaughtered thousands 
of innocent subjects, and had taken the lives of such 
great men as Counts Egmont and Home : yet a hopeful 
soul need not despond because of this. "Indeed, I 
know not how things could have turned out better. It 
is true that all that fair region is in flames ; but remem- 
ber that, without this the Spaniards cannot be burnt 
out ; and I think it is more desirable that perfidious 
Hannibal should be driven thus out of Saguntum, than 
that he should be left to the quiet holding of it." 
Another trouble was from Turkey, where the Moslems 
were designing to do much harm to Christianity by the 
conquest of Italy. What could be better ? The Chris- 
tian body would be rid of a rotten member, whereby 
the whole system had been infected. The Princes of 
Christendom would be roused from their deep dull 
slumbers, and Frenchmen, instead of cutting one ano- 
ther's throats, would join battle against a common 
foe. " But more than that ; I am quite sure that this 
ruinous Italy would so poison the Turks themselves, 
would so ensnare them in its vile allurements, that 
they would soon tumble down without being pushed. 
Depend upon it, unless I am greatly 'mistaken, we shall 
see this in our own times.'' f Young Sidney was un- 

*• Correspondence, p. 212. f Ibid., p. 213. 

G 2 



84 A MEMOIR OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. [Chai., iii. 

doubt edly very much in the wrong, and his prophecy 
does not betoken more than a youth's wisdom. 

The great strife of continental parties was as yet new 
to him, and he was very far from having mastered its 
intricacies. His letters contain many very curious and 
amusing speculations. But they show us the bent of 
his mind. During the first few months of his Italian 
sojourn, he had applied himself mostly to book-lore ; 
but now his eyes were opening to the greater interest 
and truer import of real hfe. In his own crude, 
youthful way, he was making observations, treasuring 
up facts. 

And these were months very full of startling inci- 
dents. Two great struggles were now impending, on 
the issue of which seemed to depend the whole future 
of Europe. In both Spain was a leading combatant. 
She had assumed the post of champion of Catholic 
Christianity, and she opposed herself in the one case to 
the power of the Mahometans, in the other to the 
Protestant forces. 

To withstand the aggressive spirit of the Turks the 
Holy League had, a few years before this time, been 
formed between King Philip of Spain, the Pope, and 
the Venetian Eepublic. The parties to this treaty had 
bound themselves to a perpetual and united strife 
against the Moslems. Don John of Austria, Philip's 
half-brother, though then only twenty-four years old, 
had been appointed Captain-General of the combined 
forces, and he had employed all his great talents in 
making ready for the conflict. In the autumn of 1571, 
he had set sail from Messina at the head of a magnifi- 



1574. 



] THE MAHOMETAN STEUGGLE. 85 



cent fleet ; and three weeks afterwards, on the seventh 
of October, had been fought the battle of Lepanto. It 
was the greatest of modern sea-fights, and in it the 
Turks lost five-and-twenty thousand men. The news 
of the glorious triumph spread upon the winds, and 
aroused enthusiastic joy throughout all Europe. Pope 
Pius the Fifth was so overcome with delight that he 
burst into tears, and could only exclaim, in the words of 
Scripture, " There was a man sent from God, and his 
name was John ! '' 

Yet the victory was not great enough seriously to 
overawe the Turks, or to destroy the fear of timid 
Christians, that presently all Europe would be enslaved 
by the hated followers of Mahomet. That was the thought 
of many in this year of Sidney's residence in Italy. Don 
John was carrying on the war in Tunis and Morocco, 
but Venice had withdrawn from the league and in- 
clined to a humiliating concession to her former enemy. 
Men knew not what would be the end of it all. Many 
rumours of strange things were abroad, and Sidney was 
disposed to listen to them. In one letter he told Lan- 
guet of a report, well authenticated, that there was to 
be an alliance between Yenice and the Turks ; accord- 
ing to another, it was made out that Spaniard and Turk 
would soon be leagued together ; and there was a third 
and still more absurd story of a bond between the Turk 
and the Queen of England.'" The Turkish power, 
under a show of greatness, was already dying out ; but 
Sidney could not see this ; nor could the oldest and 
the wisest in that day. 

* Correspondence, p. 205. 



86 A MEMOIR OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. [Chap. in. 

There was still greater interest, however, in watching 
the progress of affairs nearer home. King Philip hated 
Protestants more than he hated Moslems, and he was 
now withdrawing himself from battle with the Turks in 
order that all his strength might be used in crushing 
the spirit of independence which was rising in the 
Netherlands. The struggle was not newly begun : it 
had been growing for some fifteen years, and had 
already caused the death of thousands upon thousands. 
Now, however, it was receiving a new impulse. The 
Spanish forces having been much strengthened, formid- 
able preparations to meet them were being made under 
the wise guidance of WilHam of Orange and his brother 
Lewis of Nassau. Sidney may have been personally 
acquainted with Count Lewis who had been present at 
the ceremonies and the massacre at Paris. He had 
now collected an army and was leading it to meet the 
enemy. On the 15th of April, 1574, he fell in with a 
force conducted by the Spanish General D'Avila, and 
battle followed. The result was most disastrous. The 
Protestant army was wholly defeated ; Lewis himself 
and his younger brother Henry, with Christopher, the 
son of the Elector Palatine, and other German allies, 
were killed. Throughout Belgium, wrote Sidney, such 
a panic was spread that it seemed as if the whole cause 
would be given up in despair : on the other hand there 
was no weak woman ever so delighted with an unex- 
pected bit of gossip as were the Spaniards, on hearing 
of the victory. "^^ 

Sidney himself was deeply moved at this misfortune. 

* Correspondence, pp. 217, 218. 



ifto. ] THE PEOTESTANT STRUGGLE. 87 

His eyes were opening to the great movements of Euro- 
pean politics, and an interest was excited which became 
stronger in every succeeding year of his Hfe. He saw 
the great power of Spain growing greater, as it seemed, 
every day, gathering up all its strength and aiming at 
nothing less than the solid establishment over all 
Europe of Jesuit doctrine and its own despotic rule. 
Surely every nation of free men should join in strong, 
instant resistance against such a project. But what was 
the actual case ? A few brave States of the Netherlands, 
yielding a handful of citizen soldiers, were grandly at 
war for truths and principles which were to them life ; 
but elsewhere there was lamentable cowardice. Of 
the German Princes, some employed all their energies 
in moistening their throats^ while many threw their 
time away on idle hunting-parties ; others squandered 
wealth and time in such foolish work as altering the 
course of rivers. All save the Palatine had, as it 
seemed, resolved to ruin their people and disgrace 
themselves. They were dead asleep ; perhaps they 
would soon wake up to find that their sleep was really 
death.* 

This was the train of Sidney's thoughts. But he did 
not exempt England from the blame. He felt that to his 
own country the danger was almost as imminent, the 
duty quite as clear, as to the Continental States. In 
this mind he wrote, on the seventh of May, to his 
uncle, the Earl of Leicester. " Perhaps some good may 
come of it," he said, " and if not, I would far rather 

■^ Correspondence^ p. 218. 



88 A MEMOIR OF Sill PHILIP SIDNEY. [Chap, hi 

be blamed for too little wisdom than for too little 
patriotism/' * 

In the letters passing between Sidney and Languet 
at this time, there are constant allusions to public 
affairs. I have no wish, however, to attempt a detailed 
sketch of the politics of the day. It is enough to mark 
that Sidney was watching them very intently, and 
receiving from them lessons of highest value. 

While at Venice, he had a thought of proceeding to 
Constantinople in order that he might see another 
phase of life, and one very different from any he had 
before obseiwed. f But the plan was given up, and 
towards the end of July he went back to Germany. 
Then Languet came out to meet him. Phihp seems to 
have at once proceeded to Poland, probably in company 
with his friend, and to have stayed there three or 
four months. Of his doings there is no record beyond 
an untrustworthy report that he engaged in Polish 
battles with the adjacent Muscovites. He returned to 
Vienna about the end of November, as appears by a 
letter which, on the 27th of that month, he wrote to 
the Earl of Leicester. ^ 

The winter was spent in Languet's company at 
Vienna. There, it is probable, he resumed the studies 
which had lately been neglected. He had Languet for 
a very kind and watchful tutor ; and Edward, elder 
brother of the better known Sir Henry Wotton, for 
companion. But we have once only an insight into his 

* Correspo7idence, p. 218. 

t Langueti Epistoloe, p. 82. 

% Miscellaneous Works, pp. 343 — 345. 



mMf/o. ] WINTER STUDIES. 89 

employment during these months ; and this has to 
do with a subject of no very great moment. The young 
men, it seems, spent much of their leisure in learning 
the art of horsemanship, and found a superior master 
in one John Peter Pughano, who was Esquire of the 
Emperor's stables. Of him and his teaching Sidney 
has given a very pleasant sketch. 

" He, according to the fertileness of the Italian wit, did not only 
afford us the demonstration of his practice, but sought to enrich pur 
minds with the contemplation therein, which he thought most precious. 
But with none, I remember, mine ears were at any time more laden 
than when, either angered with slow payment or moved with our 
learner-like admiration, he exercised his speech in the praise of his 
faculty. He said soldiers were the noblest estate of mankind, and 
horsemen the noblest of soldiers. He said they were the masters of 
war and ornaments of peace, speedy goers and strong abiders, 
triumphers both in camps and courts ; nay, to so unbelieved a point 
he proceeded, as that no earthly thing bred such wonder to a prince as 
to be a good horseman ; skill in government was but a pedantry in 
comparison. Then would he add certain praises, by telling what a 
peerless beast the horse was, the only serviceable courtier, without 
flattery, the beast of most beauty, faithfulness, courage, and much 
more ; that if I had not been a piece of a logician before I came to 
him, I think he would have persuaded me to have wished myself a 
horse. But thus much, at least, with his no few words, he drove into 
me, that self-love is better than any gilding to make that seem 
gorgeous wherein oiurselves be parties." * 

So much of the philosophy of Sidney's riding-master, 
and of his own further philosophizing thereon. The 
lessons were by no means useless, for he was trained by 
them to become one of the best horsemen in England. 
Nor did they occupy very much time. At the utmost, 
his stay in Vienna, on this occasion, did not exceed three 

* The Defence of Poesie. 



90 A ]\lEMOm OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. [CaAP. in. 

months. At the end of February or the beginning of 
March in the new year, 1575, the Emperor Maximihan 
went to Prague, there to direct the meeting of the 
Bohemian Diet. Thither also went Languet and Sidney, 
and quickly after the opening ceremony the friends 
parted company, the former staying to attend upon his 
master, the latter returning to his native land.'"* It was 
quite time for Philip to be in England again. Having 
received two years' leave of absence, he had exceeded it 
by nearly twelve mouths. His friends, moreover, had 
entertained suspicions for which we are not able now 
to see any good reason. They thought that he was 
turning Catholic. Walsingham — who, since we saw him 
in Paris, had become Secretary of State — wrote a very 
kind but very timid letter to Languet ; and the sturdy 
Huguenot had to employ all his eloquence in per- 
suading the English minister that his fears were 
entirely groundless.! As a further help towards right- 
ino- him in the opinion of his kindred, Languet urged 
Sidney to be more particular in seeking the acquaint- 
ance of Protestant preachers, of whom he would, on his 
way back, meet with many who were learned and 
sensible men.;]: 

Philip returned home by a very zig-zag route. He 
was anxious to see as much as he could while he 
remained on the continent. Quitting Prague in the 
beginning of March, he appears to have passed through 
Dresden, § and then to have turned round for an excur- 
sion to Heidelberg, whither he bore a letter of introduc- 

* Langueti Epistolm, p. 113. J Ibid., p. 103. 

t Ibid., p. 103. § Ibid., p. 105. 



^^^^- ] ON HIS WAY HOME. 91 



^t. 20. 



tion to Count Lewis of Witgenstein, holding high office in 
Palatine's Court.* At Heidelberg, among other friends, 
he was acquainted with the learned and renowned Doctor 
Zacharias Ursinus, who marked his covetousness of time 
bj labelling on his doorway these words, " My friend, 
whoever you are, if you come here, please either go 
away again, or give me some help in my study."f 
From Heidelberg Sidney went further south to Stras- 
burg, and especially to the house of Doctor Lobetius, 
another learned man with whom he had long been 
intimate, and whom the Protestants of the day held 
in high honour.J In both places the young tra- 
veller had lodged and made friends two years before. 
Quitting Strasburg he turned back and travelled to 
Frankfort, whither Languet also came, for the sake 
of seeing his darling pupil once more. § This last meet- 
ing probably took place in April or May, or perhaps it 
extended into both months. There is characteristic 
reference to it in a letter written by the old Reformer 
after his return to Prague, as well as some slight infor- 
mation about the painting which Paul Veronese had 
executed. "All the while that I could feast my eyes 
with the sight of you," he says, " I took small heed 
of the portrait you gave me, and for which, by the 
bye, I never thanked you half as much as so splendid 
a gift deserved. But as soon as I came back from 
Frankfort, my longing for you induced me to have 



* Langueti Epistolce, pp. 104-, 107, 108. 
t Ibid., pp. 103, 107, 327. 
% Ibid., pp. 104, 107. 
§ Ibid., pp. 105, 113. 



92 A MEMOIR OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. [Cnxp. ill 

it framed and hung up in a conspicuous place. That 
done, it looks to me so beautiful and so true a likeness 
of you that I feel there is nothing in the world that I 
prize so much. Master Vulcobius '^ — a friend often 
referred to, but whose name is all that is now known of 
him — "is so pleased with its elegance, that he is looking 
out for a painter skilful enough to copy it. I think, 
though, that the artist has made you appear too sad 
and thoughtful. I should have liked it better if your 
face had had a merrier look when you sat for the 
painting.""^' It seems that the young man's face seldom 
did wear a very merry look. 

Just at this time, especially, it is not likely that 
there was much excess of merriment. He was parting 
from friends who had become very dear to him. He 
was going back to a home in which death had caused 
a heavy grief. On the 22nd of February his sister 
Ambrozia had died at Ludlow Castle ; and by this time 
the tidings must have reached him. There is no clear 
record of Ambrozia's age, but she was probably about 
fourteen or fifteen years old at the time of her death. 
She could hardly have been older, as several children 
had been born between her and Philip. Nor could she 
have been much younger ; for, had she been a mere 
child, Queen Elizabeth would not have thought of 
writing the kind letter of condolence which she sent to 
Sir Henry Sidney, f 

Besides this trouble, perhaps partly in consequence 

* Langueti EinstolcEy pp. 113, 114. 

t State Paper Office, MSS., Domestic Correspondence^ Elizabeth, 
vol. eiii. No. 13, and Warrant Bock, vol. i. p. 83. See later, p. 110. 



1575. 
iEt. 20, 



] HOME AGAIN. 93 



of it, Philip himself fell ill after parting from Languet* 
This may have delayed his return home for still a few 
weeks more^ At last he took boat at Antwerp, and 
reached London early in June. " On the last day of 
May," he said, in a letter to his friend the Count of 
Hannau, " fair winds conyeyed me to this island nest of 
ours. I found all my kindred well, and the Queen, 
although she is certainly advancing in years, still in 
thorough health. To us she is just Hke that brand of 
Meleager, which, should it be extinguished, would take 
from us all our quietness."! 

* Langueti Epistolce, p. 120. 
t Correspondence^ pp. 224, 225. 



CHAPTER IV. 

FROM YOUTH TO MANHOOD. 

1575—1577. 

Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, was certainly a 
bad man. Modern research, if it has cleared away some 
old rumours about him, has found convincing evidence 
for others quite grievous enough to prove him guilty of 
many evil deeds. But the guilt was not in his own 
day apparent. For years he was the chief favourite of 
Queen Elizabeth, and liked, with that sort of goodwill 
which always surrounds powerful men, by her other 
courtiers. His handsome face and figure, his elegance 
in dress and Hving, his courtly bearing to his superiors 
and equals, and his showy patronage of men beneath 
him in rank, all at the time redounded to his honour. 
Outside the Court, it is true, there was much talk of 
his empty flattery and of his haughty bearing ; of 
his meanness and his cunning and treachery. Many 
stories were afloat, charging him with murder and every 
conceivable wickedness : but most of the reports were 
manifestly false ; and, true or false, they were not to 
be uttered within royal hearing. The Queen loved 
Leicester as much as it was possible for her to love 
any one ; and not without some reason. Bad as he 



Jflo. ] THE EARL OF LEICESTER. 95 



was, there was a measure of good in him. Within 
limits he was wise, and learned, and wittj. He was 
an honest promoter of literature and art, a prudent 
supporter of commerce, and a generous encourager of 
that spirit of discovery by which the age was especially 
marked. His public acts were conducted with dignity, 
or with a splendour which might pass for dignity. 
It is not strange that Elizabeth liked and heaped 
honours upon him, or that his fellow com'tiers envied 
him and chose him for their pattern. 

Philip Sidney at any rate, up to this stage of his 
history, had not much personal ground for finding fault 
with his uncle. While a lad, he had been very kindly 
treated by him. It seems that the busy courtier took 
almost greater care of his nephew than might have been 
expected. And now that Sidney was a man, and that 
his manly excellence, visible to all, gave promise that he 
would reach high in public hfe, Leicester was honestly 
eager to forward his interests and to lead him to the 
summit of courtly eminence. The EarFs ways were 
often crooked, and such as the young man was too 
noble to walk in, or, if he did walk in them, to pursue 
with any satisfaction to himself. But we cannot 
wonder that his eye was dazzled, that he magnified 
all virtue that was discernible, and saw little or nothing 
of the vice. At this time and during many subsequent 
3^ears, I imagine that he felt a very honest admiration 
for his uncle, and was anxious to submit to all the 
influence which the other was desirous to exert. 

Here is indication of one part of Sidney's training 
which we must note carefully if we would understand 



96 A MEMOIR OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. [Chap iv. 

the growth of his character. We may consider it as 
beginning with the day of his return to London. It 
was upon the earl's introduction that he was admitted 
into the gayest and most select circle of the Elizabethan 
Court ; and, as it happened, he returned just soon 
enough to be a witness of rare gaiety. 

His uncle was very busy. The Queen had deter- 
mined that this summer she would travel through 
Warwickshire and the neighbouring parts, and, among 
other em23loyment of her time, would visit the stately 
mansion of Kenil worth, which, thirteen years before, she 
had given to her favourite. The Earl, eager on this 
occasion that no pains should be spared in making all 
possible display of loyalty, was resolved that this should 
be such an entertainment as a subject had never yet 
given to a sovereign. Perhaps he succeeded. At any 
rate, the spectacles and festivities that he provided have 
been very seldom rivalled. 

Of Sidney's share in them we have, unfortunately, 
no detailed record. We only know that he was present 
with the Court both at Kenilworth and during the 
subsequent progress."^ A few specimens of the wonder- 
ful things he saw and heard must, therefore, be given 
in illustration of the holiday part of that courtier hfe in 
which he was now learning to move. 

The entertainment began on Saturday, the 9th of 
July, 1575. On that day, Queen Elizabeth, who had 
left London shortly before, was met by the Earl, and 
conducted to Kenilworth. Having dined and hunted 

* Langueti Epistolce,, pp. 120, 132. 



1575. 
^t. 20. 



] KENILWORTH SHOWS. 97 



on the road, she entered the castle at eight o'clock in 
the evening. A fair maiden, dressed as a syhil, came 
forth to greet her with a rhyming prophecy, better in 
spirit than in poetry. Then six huge trumpeters, each 
of them being eight feet tall, we are told, advanced, 
and out of instruments, in keeping with their size, 
uttered a noisy welcome. The porter of the outer gate, 
clad like Hercules, made feigned resistance, but was 
soon overcome by the beauty of the royal countenance. 

'' "What dainty darling's here ? O God ! a peerless pearl ! 
No wordly -wight, no doubt ; some sovereign goddess sure. 
E'en face, e'en hand, e'en eye, e'en other features all. 
Yea, beauty, grace and cheer, yea, port and majesty, 
Show all some heavenly peer, with virtues all beset. 
Come, come, most perfect paragon, pass on with joy and bliss ! 
Most worthy welcome goddess guest, whose presence gladdeneth all, 
Have here, have here, both club and keys ; myself, my ward, I yield, 
E'en gates and all, yea, lord himself submit and seek your shield." 

Flattery almost as rough, and therefore almost as 
pleasant to the Queen, was uttered by the Lady of the 
Lake, who appeared upon the water, attended by her 
nymphs, and this part of the pageant was closed with 
'' a delectable harmony " of hautboys, shalms, cornets, 
and other loud music, which continued while her 
Majesty rode on to the inner gate. There further 
tribute of obedience was paid. Sylvanus, in token of 
submission, offered a splendid cage, full of all sorts of 
dainty wild birds. Pomona held a large bowl, laden 
with apples, beans, walnuts, and all other fruits. Ceres 
brought such things as wheat and peas. Bacchus held 
clusters of grapes and flagons of wine. Neptune sup- 
ported a tank in which were all sorts of fish and shell- 
fish, from oysters to salmon. Mars wore every kind of 



98 A MEMOIR OP SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. [Cuap.tv. 

warlike gear. Phoebus presented a small bay-tree, hung 
with numberless instruments of music. And as soon 
as the visitors were housed, the first day^s entertainment 
ended with the homage of Jupiter himself, presented 
with such clatter of guns and discharging of fire- 
works that many thought the end of the world was 
come. Then all slept soundly. 

Next day being Sunday, the forenoon was spent in 
church-going, and the after-dinner-time in such sober 
amusement as music and dancing. At night Jupiter 
made fresh descent, and it seemed by comparison as if 
on the former occasion he had forgotten to perform his 
work, and now came down to do it in earnest. It was 
a grand display ; what with the burning darts flying 
hither and thither, the great stars shooting everywhere, 
the sparks flying upwards and downwards, there was 
such a general glittering confusion as never before now 
had been seen or heard of. 

Throughout the following week new entertainments 
were abundantly presented. On Thursday there was a 
bear-baiting, much to the Queen's fancy. " With fending 
and proving, with plucking and hugging, scratching 
and biting, by plain tooth and nail on one side and the 
other, such expense of blood and leather was there 
between them, as a month's licking, I ween, will not 
recover.'' So writes one who saw the strife, and he 
goes on to say : '' It was a sport very pleasant of these 
beasts, to see the bear with his pink eyes leering after 
his enemies' approach, the nimbleness and weight of the 
dog to take his advantage, and the force and experi- 
ence of the bear again to avoid the assaults. If he 



1575. 
^t. 20. 



] KENILWOETH SHOWS. 99 



were bitten in one place, liow would he pinch in another 
to get free ; that if he were taken once, then what 
shift, with biting, with clawing, with roaring, tossing 
and tumbling, he would work to wrench himself from 
them ; and when he was loose, to shake his ears twice 
or thrice, with the blood and the slaver about his 
physiognomy, was matter of a goodly relief ! '' 

There were wrestlings and Itahan feats of skill, per- 
formed by a man who seemed to have no backbone at 
all, so deftly did he twist about. There was a marriage 
ceremony, which caused the Queen and her courtiers 
some good frolic. There were splendid hunting excur- 
sions. There was more uttering of addresses by 
nymphs and satyrs, and gods and goddesses. There 
was a minstrel, suitably apparelled, who rehearsed the 
whole story of King Arthur's contest with King R^^ence. 
There was Captain Cox, a wonderful man on his hobby 
horse, wonderfully skilled in all the legendary and 
romantic lore of the day, and of all former days ; 
master of every tale concerning Arthur and Lancelot, 
Robin Hood and Adam Bell ; with a Jiundred or more 
ancient songs in his head ; learned also in philosophy, 
astronomy, and every other hidden science ; and further- 
more the best taster of ale and wine that was ever known. 

He it was who took the lead in a play performed by 
the Coventry men, and having for its subject the over- 
throw of Danish insolence and cruelty in King Ethelred's 
day. It was chosen specially for presentment before 
the maiden Queen because it showed how valiantly our 
English women had, in old days, behaved themselves 
for love of their country. A long and grisly battle 



100 A MEMOIR OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. IChap. iv. 

was enacted, and in the course of it, we learn, many a 
o:ood bang was o:ot and o-iven on either side. Twice 
the Danes seemed victorious ; but at last they were 
beaten down, and led away in triumph by a troop of 
Amazons. So great was the Queen's pleasure, that she 
gave to the performers five marks of money, besides a 
couple of bucks for their dinner. 

After witnessing the spectacle, the courtly company 
also had need of food. Of entertainments offered to 
the palate during this royal visit to Kenilworth, there is 
less record than one might expect to see ; but on this 
occasion, we find, there was furnished " a most delicious 
and ambrosial banquet,^' at which three hundred differ- 
ent sorts of dishes were set upon the tables. But of 
all of them her Majesty hardly tasted one. She cared 
not over much for eating, and she much disliked to see 
others gorging themselves and struggling for the best 
viands, as here they did. 

We may not loiter much longer at Kenilworth, or it 
would be pleasant to picture the chief members of the 
lordly gathering ISTearest of all to the Queen would 
of course be her host, and if ever Leicester took pride 
in his position as chief royal favourite, it must have 
been now, when such splendid evidence was being given 
to his mistress of his chivalrous loj^alty, and to all the 
world of his princely bearing. Among a crowd of 
other guests were Mr. Secretary Walsingham, Thomas 
Sackville Lord Buckhurst, Sir Francis Knollys, then 
Treasurer to the Queen's household, with his daughter, 
the Countess of Essex. If Burghley was present at all, 
it was only for a short time, since matters of State 



S. ] KENILWOETH SHOWS. 10] 



detained him in London ; but his son, Thomas Cecil, 
received knighthood during the visit. Of course 
Leicester's own kindred were in attendance. His 
brother, the Earl of Warwick, was there for pleasure, 
and his brother-in-law, Sir Henry Sidney, w^as present 
on business. The visitor most notable of all to us, 
however, was his nephew, Mr. PhiKp Sidney.* 

To Philip, newly come from the sight of foreign 
Courts, these English spectacles must have been 
strangely interesting. There was everything to please 
him. Wherever witnessed, the shows would have been 
welcome enough ; but their attraction was immensely 
increased by the knowledge that in each one the honour 
of his kindred was being reflected. With the lively and 
witty talk that went round, also, and with the coquettish 
dances into wdiicli he was paired wdth tlie gayest and 
handsomest ladies in the Queen s train, he might well be 
pardoned for turning giddy. I think Languet would not 
have reproached him for too much seriousness if he could 
have watched him through these nineteen days of cease- 
less pleasure. 

On Wednesday, the 27th of July, the Royal party 
quitted Kenilworth. Of all the entertainments furnished 
during the time, without question the most poetical was 
the last one. As Ehzabeth rode out of the grounds, one in 
the likeness of Sylvanus made a long and pleasant speech, 
and, after him. Deep-desire, fabled to have been long since 
transformed into a holly-bush, addressed her Majesty : — 

" Stay, stay your hasty steps, O Queen without compare. 

And hear him talk whose trusty tongue consumed is with care. 

■^ Langueti Epistolce, pp. 120, 132, 



102 A MEMOIR OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. IChap. iv. 

I am that wretch Desire whom neither death could daunt, 
Nor dole decay, nor dread delay, nor feigned cheer enchant ; 
Whom neither care could quench, nor fancy force to change, 
And therefore turned into this tree, which sight perchance runs 
strange. " 

He went on to describe the heavy grief ^Yhich spread 
among the gods and goddesses, and nymphs and satyrs, 
at thought of Ehzabeth's departure. 

" At first Diana wept such brinish bitter tears, 

That all her nymphs did doubt her death, — her face the sign yet 

bears ; 
Dame Flora fell on ground, and bruised her woeful breast ; 
Yea, Pan did break his oaten pipes ; Sylvanus and the rest. 
Which walk amid these woods, for grief did roar and cry ; 
And Jove, to show what moan he made, with thundering cracked 

the sky." 

Therefore Desire was sent to entreat her further stay. 
If it might be, all the people of heaven, and all the 
dwellers in the air, would be proud companions and 
obedient servants to her. 

But the Queen could not be persuaded. So Deep- 
desire uttered a final dirge : — 

'' Come muses, come, and help me to lament ; 

Come woods, come waves, come hills, come doleful dales ; 
Since life and death are both against me bent. 
Come Gods, come men, bear witness of my bales, 
Oh, heavenly nymphs, come help my heavy heart, 
With sighs to see Dame Pleasure thus depart. 
" If death or dole could daunt a deep desire, 

If privy pangs could counterpoise my plaint, 
If tract of time a true intent could tire. 

Or cramps of care a constant mind could taint. 
Oh, then might I at will here live and serve. 
Although my deeds did more delight deserve. 
" But out, alas ! no gripes of grief suffice 

To break in twain this harmless heart of mine ; 
For though delight be banished from mine eyes, 



iflo. ] KENILWORTH SHOWS. 103 

Yet lives desire, wliom pains can never pine. 
Oil, strange effects ! I live which seem to die, 
Yet died to see my dear delight go by. 
" Then farewell sweet, for whom I taste such sour ; 
Farewell delight, for whom I dwell in dole, 
Freewill farewell, farewell my fancy's flower ; 
Farewell content, whom cruel cares control ; 
Oh, farewell life ; delightful death farewell ; 
I die in heaven, yet live in darksome hell. " * 

■^ I have drawn most of these particulars from two very pleasant 
narratives by eye-witnesses, one entitled " The Princely Tleasures at 
the Courte at Kenilworth : That is to saye, the Copies of all such Verses, 
FroseSj or Poetical Inventions, and other Devices of Pleasures, as ivere 
there devised, and presented hy sundry Gentlemen, before the Quene^s 
Majestie, in the year 1575," TATitten by George Gascoigne, the poet, 
and printed in 1576 ; the other, "^ Letter : wherein part of the 
Entertainment unto the Queenh Majesty, at Killingworth Castle, in 
Warwick Sheer, in this Soomerz Progress, 1575, is signified : from 
the friend officer attendant in the Court unto hiz friend a Citizen and 
Merchant of London,^' first correctly printed by Nichols in his Pro- 
gresses of Queen Elizabeth (2nd ed. 1823, vol. ii. pp. 420 — 484). 
Laneham or Langham, the author of the latter work, was a follower 
of the Earl of Leicester^ Lady Mary Sidney, and others, and there- 
fore must have been well known to Philip. This circumstance must 
be my slender excuse for copying his quaint account of his day's 
occupation ; the true reason being the valuable insight which it gives 
into the real life of a humble courtier, a courtier of courtiers. He 
says, " A mornings I rise ordinarily at seven o'clock. Then ready, 
I go into the chapel. Soon after eight I get me comfortably into 
my lord's chamber, or into my lord's presidents. There at the cup- 
board, after I have eaten the manchet served over night for livery 
(for I dare be as bold, I promise you, as any of my friends the ser- 
vants there ; and indeed could I have fresh if I would tarry, but I 
am of wont jolly and dry a mornings), I drink me a good bowl of ale. 
When in a sweet pot it is defecated by all night's standing, the drink 
is the better, take that of me : and a morsel in the morning, with a 
soimd draught, is very wholesome and good for the eye-sight. Then 
I am as fresh all the forenoon after as I had eaten a whole piece of 
beef. Now, sir, if the Council sit, I am at hand ; wait at an inch, I 
warrant you. If any make babbling, Peace,' say I, ' whoot where 



104 A MEMOIR OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. (Chap. iv. 

From Kenilworth the Queen proceeded to Liclificld, 
where she sttayed eight days, and then went on to 
Chartley Castle, the seat of Walter Devereux, Earl of 
Essex. The Countess of Essex, as we have noticed, 
was present at the entertainment furnished by Leicester, 
and now it was only a reasonable compliment that she 

ye are ?" If I take a listener, or a prier in at the chinks or at the 
lock-hole, I am by and by in the bones of him. But now they keep 
good order ; they know me well enough. If he be a friend or such a 
one as I like, I make him sit down by me on a form or a chest ; let 
the rest walk, a God's name. And here do my languages now and 
then stand me in good stead, my French, my Spanish, my Dutch, and 
my Latin ; sometimes among ambassador's men, if their master be 
within the Council ; sometimes with the ambassador himself, if he 
bid call his lackey, or ask me whafc's o'clock. And, I warrant ye, I 
answer him roundly, that they marvel to see such a fellow there ; 
then laugh I and say nothing. Dinner and supper I have twenty 
places to go to, and heartily prayed too. Sometime get I to Master 
Pinner — by my faith, a worshipful gentleman, and as careful for his 
charge as any her Highness hath. There find I always good store of 
very good viands : we eat and be merry, thank God and the Queen. 
Himself in feeding very temperate and moderate as ye shall see any ; 
and yet, by your leave, of a dish, as of cold pigeon or so, that hath 
come to him of meat more than he looked for, I have seen him even 
so by and by surfeit, as he hath plucked off his napkin, wiped his 
knife, and ate not a morsel more : like enough to stick in his stomach 
a two days after. ... In afternoons and a nights, sometime am I 
with the right worshipful Sir George Howard, as good a gentleman as 
any lives ; and sometimes at my good Lady Sidney's chamber, a 
noblewoman that I am as much bound unto as any poor man may be 
unto so gracious a lady ; and sometimes in some other place ; but 
always among the gentlewomen by my good will — O, ye know that 
comes always of a gentle spirit. And when I see company according, 
then can I be as lively too : sometime I foot it with dancing : now 
with my gittem or else with my cittern, then at the virginals : ye know 
nothing comes amiss to me. Then carrol I up a song withal, then by 
and by they come flocking about me like bees to honey ; and ever 
they cry, * Another, good Langham, another ! ' Shall I tell you when 
I see Mistress — (A, see a mad knave : I had almost told all I) that she 



^^20.] ^T CHARTLEY CASTLE. 105 

should offer hospitality to her Sovereign, her recent 
host and all the other courtiers in the Royal train. But 
the Earl was now in Ireland, where, in a few days, 
Sir Henry Sidney was to join him. Essex had heen 
in Ireland for more than two years. Displeased 
at the favour which, to his own disparagement, was 

gives only but one eye or one ear ; why then, man, am I blest : my 
grace, my courage, my cunning is doubled. She says, sometime, she 
likes it, and then I like it much the better ; it doth me good to hear 
how well I can do. And, to say truth, what with mine eyes, as I can 
amorously gloat it, with my Spanish sospires, my French heigheSj 
mine Italian dulcets, my Dutch hovez " ^Hoofshiedj is the euphonious 
Dutch term for coui-tship], "my double release, my high reaches, my 
fine feigning, my deep diapason, my wanton warbles, my running, my 
timing, my tuning, and my twinkling, I can gratify the masters as 
well as the proudest of them, and was yet never stained, I thank God. 
By my troth, countrymen, it is sometimes high midnight ere T can 
get from them. And thus have I told you most of my trade, all the 
live-long day. " Not quite all : he adds a few sentences more of his 
welcome gossip about himself. " Herewith meant I fully to bid you 
farewell, had not this doubt come to my mind, that here remains a 
doubt in you, which I ought, methought, in any wise to clear, which 
is, you marvel, perchance to see me so bookish. Let me tell you in 
a few words. I went to school, forsooth, both at Paul's and also at 
Saint Anthony's. In the fifth form, past ^sop Fables I wiss, read 
Terence Vos istoec intro aiiferte, and began with my Virgil Tityre, tu 
patulce : I could my rules, could construe, and parse with the best of 
them. Since that, as partly ye Imow, have I traded the feat of mer- 
chandize in sundry countries, and so got me languages ; which do so 
little hinder my Latin, as (I thank God) have much increased it. I 
have leisure sometimes, when I tend not upon the Council, whereby 
now look I on one book, now on another. Stories I delight in ; the 
more ancient and rare, the more likesome unto me. If I told you I 
liked William of Malmsbury so well because of his diligence and 
ambiguity, perchance you would construe it because I love malmsey 
so well. But in faith it is not so ; for sipped I no more sack and 
sugar (and yet never but with company), than I do malmsey, I should 
not blush so much a day as I do. You know my mind." 



106 A MEMOIR OP SIR rHILIP SIDNEY. [Chap. iv. 

being heaped upon Leicester, anxious also to be about 
some useful work, in the spring of 1573 he had sought 
and obtained employment of an unusual sort. At his 
own cost he had equipped and supported a small body 
of men who, under his leadership, were to act as pro- 
tectors of justice in the most turbulent part of the 
turbulent island. One would have thought that 
Elizabeth would have highly prized so generous an 
undertaking : as it was, her conduct was altogether 
characteristic. She permitted him to go, but, when 
he was there, she allowed him to be subjected 
to all possible indignities. She thanked him in out- 
rageous terms for his loyal spirit, and when he desired 
to raise money for commencing the business, she was 
ready to lend it to him ; but she must have good secu- 
rity for the loan, she must receive interest at ten per 
cent., and, in default of proper payment, she must take 
compensation which a Shylock would not have thought 
too moderate.''^ Essex spent the 10,000/. which he 
borrowed on these terms, and 25,000/. more, the issue 
being the great impoverishment of his property and the 
ruin of his health and happiness. The Royal conscience 
must now and then have been troubled during this 
visit to Chartley Castle ; and, perhaps there was some 
thought of offering the restitution which was due, 
while Elizabeth, on the 6th of August, wrote in these 
terms to her sometime favourite : — 

*' If lines could value life, or thanks could answer praise, I should 
esteem my pen's labour the best employed time that many years hath 

* The Document is in the State Paper Office. Devereux, Lives and 
Letters of the Earls of Essex (1853), vol. i. pp. 27, 28. 



^fc;2o. ] THE EARL OF ESSEX AITD HIS LADY. 107 

lent me. But to suj^ply tlie want that both, these carrieth, a right judg- 
ment of upright dealing shall lengthen the scarcity that either of the 
other wanteth. Deem, therefore, cousin mine, that the search of your 
honour, with the danger of your breath, hath not been bestowed on 
so ungrateful a prince that will not both consider the one and reward 
the other. 

"Your most loving cousin and sovereign, E.R." * 

There is no record of Cliartley festivities akin to 
those which have made Kenilworth so illustrious, and 
we may safely conclude that none were offered. The 
hostess would show all courteous bearing to her Eoyal 
guest ; but she would hardly go out of her way to pay 
unusual and unexpected compliments. There was not 
much goodwill between the two. The Countess was 
daughter of Sir Francis Knollys, whose wife was niece to 
Anne Boleyn, and thus she was cousin to her Sovereign. 
From her father she inherited much sturdy indepen- 
dence of spirit, and it may be that she thought herself 
by her maternal ancestry an equal to the Queen, whom 
she certainly excelled in sprightliness and beauty. She 
had given displeasure at Court, fourteen years ago, 
by winning the love of her present husband ; and per- 
haps already EHzabeth was beginning to suspect the 
passion which even now Leicester seems to have felt for 
Lady Essex. Here was the prelude of a tragi-comedy 
to be enacted some years later. 

But we have more concern with the children now play- 
ing about Chartley Castle, than with the Countess her- 
self. Besides an infant who died early, probably was dead 
before this time, her family comprised four members. 

* Devereux, Lives and Letters of the Earls of Essex (1853), vol. i., 
p. 119. 



108 A MEMOIR OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. [Chap. iv. 

The eldest was Penelope, but twelve years old ; and 
after her came Dorothy, Eobert, and Walter, whose 
several ages were now about ten, eight and six.* 
Robert lived to be the splendid and ill-fated Earl of 
Essex — " great England's glory, and the world's high 
wonder," as Spenser styled him. Penelope, as Stella, 
was to influence, as much as any other person in the 
world, Sir Philip Sidney's life and character. 

It was doubtless during this visit of the Court to 
Chartley, that Sidney first saw the beautiful girl who 
Avas hereafter to be queen over him, with a haughtier 
sovereignty than Elizabeth's. 

" To lier lie vow'd tlie service of his days ; 
On her he spent the riches of his wit ; 
For her he made hymns of immortal praise ; 
Of only her he sung, he thought, he writ. 
Her, and but her, of love he worthy deemed ; 
For all the rest but little he esteemed." j 

Penelope was in her thirteenth year and Philip in his 
twenty-first, ages not reckoned out of proportion, and 
hardly premature, in the Elizabethan day. Marriages 
were often contracted as early in fife, and we may 
well imagine that the coy maiden was already almost 
womanly in her bearing. Yet it would be vain to specu- 
late upon the thoughts which arose in either during this 
first brief intimacy. We know that impressions were 
then made that gave the starting point to a long series 

* Devereux, Lives and Letters of the Earls of Essex (1853), vol. ii., 
p. 9. Penelope was born some time in 1563 ; Dorothy on the I7th of 
September, 1565 ; Robert on the 10th November, 1567 ; Walter on 
the 7th of October, 1569. 

t Spenser, Astrop]t,el, 11. 61 — 66. 



if ^0, ] A NEW Penelope's web. 109 

of incidents. Their rehearsal, however, as far as trace 
of them survives, will find its place in later pages. 
For the present let Philip's own pleasant sonnet, written 
some years later, be received as sober history. 

" Not at first sight, nor -with a dribbed shot, 

Love gave the wound whicli, while I breathe, will bleed : 
But known worth did in mine of time proceed, 

Till, by degrees, it had full conquest got. 

I saw and liked ; I liked, but loved not ; 

I loved, but straight did not what love decreed ; 
At length to love's decrees I, forced, agreed. 

Yet with repining at so partial lot. 

Now, e'en that footstep of lost liberty 

Is gone, and now, like slave born Muscovite, 

I call it praise to suffer tyranny 

And now employ the remnant of my wit 

To make myself believe that all is well. 

While, with a feeling skill, I paint my hell." * 

Philip, however, in addition to the charms of Penelope 
Devereux, had some other occupation for his thoughts 
during the short stay at Chartley. Here he parted 
from his father. From the autumn of 1571 till now, 
Sir Henry Sidney appears to have worked quietly as 
Lord President of Wales. In consideration of his good 
service done to the State it had, as we have seen, been 
designed, in the spring of 1572, to make a Baron of 
him ; but he had declined the honour, as he had not 
means wherewith to maintain it with dignity. To offer 
it, as it had been offered, was almost a mockery, and he 
seems to have received it as such. There is, however, 
welcome indication of the kindness latent in the Eoyal 
heart, notwithstanding its general hardness and selfish- 

* Astrophel and Stella, Sonnet ii. 



110 A MEMOIR OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. [Chap. IV. 

ness, ill a letter written to him by Queen Elizabeth 

a few months earlier in this year, on the occasion of his 

daughter Ambrozia's death. 

**GooD Sidney, 
** Although we are well assured that with your wisdom and great ex- 
perience of worldly chances and necessities, nothing can happen unto you 
so heavy but you can and will bear them as they ought to be rightly 
taken; namely, such as happen by the special appointment and work 
of Almighty God, which He hath lately shown by taking unto Him 
from your company, a daughter of yours ; yet, forasmuch as we con- 
ceive the grief you yet feel thereby, as in such cases natural parents 
are accustomed, we would not have you ignorant, to ease your sorrow 
as much as may be, how we take part of your grief upon us : whereof 
these our letters unto you are witness ; and we will use no further 
persuasions to confirm you respecting the good counsel yourself can 
take of yourself, but to consider that God doth nothing evil; to whose 
holy will all is subject, and must yield at times to us uncertain. He 
hath left unto you the comfort of one daughter of very good hope, 
whom, if you shall think good to remove from those parts of un- 
pleasant air, if it be so, into better in these parts, and will send her 
unto us before Easter, or when you shall think good, assure yourself 
that we will have a special care of her, not doubting but, as you are 
well persuaded of our favour towards yourself, so will we make 
further demonstration thereof in her, if you will send her unto us, 
and so comforting you for the one, and leaving this our offer of good 
will to your own consideration for the other we commit you to 
Almighty God." -^ 

I have broken through the strict order of chronology 
for the sake of quoting this kind letter. It shows 
EHzabeth in her best mind. It is probable that her 
generous offer to take charge of Mary, Sir Henry's only 
surviving daughter, was comphed with gladly. The 
Lord President himself, moreover, began to receive very 
different treatment from that which had been accorded 
to him during the three previous years. The chief 

* State Paper Office, MSS., Domestic Correspondence, Elizabeth, 
Warrant Booh, vol. i., p. 83. 



1575 
Mt 



\ ] FAMILY INCIDENTS. Ill 



reason for this was to be found in the new difficulties 
which had lately sprung up in Ireland, and which none 
but he seemed able to subdue. He was summoned to 
be present with the Court and to take honourable place 
in the Royal councils. At length, upon the recall of 
Sir William FitzWilliam, then Lord Deputy of Ire- 
land, he was appointed for a third time to the office. 
On the last day of July, 1575, he was sworn of the Irish 
Council, and on the 5th of August, while the Queen was 
at Chartley, he received his patent.* He followed the 
Eoyal party for a few days longer in order that he 
might receive personal instructions from his mistress 
and attend to other matters. About the 12th of 
August, " taking leave of her Majesty and kissing her 
sacred hands, with most gracious and comfortable words 
from her," he parted from the Court and his family at 
Dudley Castle, f in time to reach Ireland on the 8th of 
September, and enter upon employment in which he 
was to be engaged for just three years. 

Philip, in company with his mother and sister, 
appears to have followed the Queen in her progress. 
From Chartley the Court turned to visit Staffi)rd, 
where entertainment was offered by Edward, Lord 
Staff'ord. Thence the route was past Dudley, Chilhng- 
ton, and Hartlebury Castle, the residence of the Bishop 
of the diocese, to Worcester. For eight days Eliza- 
beth received very loyal treatment from the people 
of Worcester, and three weeks were spent in visiting 

■* State Paper Office, MSS., Domestic Correspondence, Elizabeth, 
vol. xlv., No. 31. 

t Ibid., vol. clix. No. 1, fol. 20. 



112 A MEMOIR OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. [Chap. TV. 

other places on the road. By the 11th of September 
she had reached Woodstock, the scene of her girhsh 
confinement, whither the Earl of Leicester had gone 
before to make ready for her fit reception. Soon 
after that she returned to London, doubtless bringing 
Sidney with her. 

At any rate he was in London by the beginning of 
November, when he wrote to Hubert Languet."^'' Except 
a short letter which he had sent on the 12th of June, 
to say that he had reached London safely, f this was the 
only communication he had made to Languet since 
leaving Germany, and the old man naturally felt 
aggrieved. " I might fairly be distressed,^' he wrote 
from Vienna on the 28th of November, " by the ingra- 
titude of those whom I thought to be my friends ; but 
I am much more than distressed by this obstinate 
silence of yours, since for five or six months I have 
received nothing from you, although I have often 
written to you and you have written to others. I fear 
I have done something which has quite estranged you 
from me ; for if not, you could surely in all that time 
have spared one hour to your old friend. I know that 
you had won not only my very kindest wishes, but also 
my highest admiration, and I used to prophesy to my 
friends concerning those splendid mental gifts with 
which God has freely adorned you ; I thought myself 
wonderfully fortunate, in my wretched, toilsome old 
age, in getting to know you and even, as I behoved, to 
be loved by you. But now, if through any foolishness 

* Langueti JEpistolce, p. 139. 
t Ibid., p. 120. 



mISo.] * languet's friendship. 113 

or ill-breeding of mine, I have lost that which I prized 
most of all, I must just AYeep out my misery." * In 
language like this, however exaggerated, there is evi- 
dence of unusual and very real affection, as we41 as 
indication of rare worth in him who inspired it. Languet 
had friends of his own stamp, and of rank far higher 
than his own, in plenty. With nearly every Protestant 
sovereign in Europe he was intimate, and every Protes- 
tant doctor was proud if he could be called the friend 
of one so wise and learned. Yet his whole heart seemed 
to be given to this youth of twenty. From him he 
endured all sorts of neglect, and all his faults he took 
upon himself. 

Languet certainly deserved a reply. He had written 
several letters full of pleasant talk, and overflowing with 
kind feeling. On the 13th of August, after thanking 
Sidney for the note which he had received in July, he 
went on to say : " It contains such proof of your love 
for me, and moreover is so elegantly and ably written, 
that it alone would have induced me to love and admire 
you, if the gentleness of your manners, the strength of 
your judgment, and the extent of your knowledge, far in 
advance of your years, had not already done so. I 
know it is almost absurd of me to ask you, amid the 
turmoil of the Court, and with so many temptations to 
misuse time, not wholl}^ to give up exercising yourself 
in Latin ; yet, as this letter shows what progress you 
have made in it, and how well you can write when you 
give your mind to it,f if you quite neglect the study, I 

* Ibid., p. 137. 

t In one of the first letters written by Sidney to Languet, he 



114 A MEMOIR OF SIR I'lIILIP SIDNEY. ' IChaf iv 

shall be obliged to bkme you for giving way to laziness 
and pleasure-seeking. See what thanks I give you for 
your welcome letter, — trying to persuade you to apply 
youpself to pursuits which, in men of your condition, are 
thought to show want of common sense ! "'" 

In another letter, written from Prague on the 18th 
of September, Languet spoke much more strongly 
about the risk of giving way to laziness and pleasure- 
seeking. After complaining of Sidney's long silence 
consequent upon his following the Queen in her courtly 
progress, he added, " I daresay you will think me un- 
kind for urging you to put aside the pleasure of meeting 
with your friends while you do such hard work as 
writing a few letters ; and I fear this letter, instead of 
being acceptable to you, will seem to fall like a black 
cloud upon your idleness. But, my darling Sidney, you 
must not forget the motto, Vitanda est improba siren, 
Desidia!' f 

At length Sidney wrote to his friend ; but, alas, the 
letter is lost. Full of gossip about the spectacles that he 
had lately seen and the bustling occurrences of the past 
few months, J it would have been very valuable reading 
if it had come down to us. These things he urged as 
an excuse for not having written sooner ; but Languet 
was not well satisfied. " Caesar was better and more 
fully employed,'' he drily observed, " when he wrote his 
Commentaries, Out of all that time could not you spare 

complained of the difficulty lie liad in expressing himself in a language 
with which he was not familiar. — Corresp07idence, p. 203. 

* Langueti Epistolce, p. 120. J Ibid., p. 139. 

t Ibid., pp. 132, 133. 



st.lb. ] lakguet's reproaches. 115 



^t, 



a single hour to friends in whom you knew there was 
so much love for you, and who care a great deal more for 
you than for themselves '? At the cost of one dance in 
a month, you could have done all that was expected of 
you ! Last winter you spent three or four months with 
me. Just think how many eminent authors you studied 
in that little time, and what good came to you in read- 
ing them. If in so short a space you could learn so 
many things which would be helpful to you in the pro- 
per conduct of life, could not that hinder you from 

burying yourself in foolish pleasure ? Never 

think that God has adorned you with so much talent in 
order that you may let it rot in indolence ; but re- 
member always that He expects better work from you 
than from others with whom He has dealt less freely." 
But the honest Languet felt that his language was 
growing unreasonably stern : after all, it was not so 
very wicked a thing to enjoy the Hfe Heaven had 
meant to be enjoyable. " You see," he added, in lighter 
mood, " how unkindly I am answering your letter, so 
full of kindness. I do thank you for it, although I 
cannot suffer you to run the risk of squandering your 
powers in mere idleness. I never doubted that you 
would at once secure the admiration of all your friends, 
and of all the noblest men about you. In this particular 
your letter tells me nothing of which I was not sure 
before : but I am very glad indeed to be told it." ^^ 

In a former letter, Languet had joked with Sidney 
about marriage, and commended to him the example of 

* Ibid., pp. 139, 140. 



116 A MEMOIR OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. [Chap. iv. 

their friend, Edward Wotton, who had just taken a wife.* 
Sidney seems to have gaily sent back some very vehe- 
ment protestations, none the less vehement because very 
different thoughts formed in reality the undercurrent 
of his mind. Languet answered : — " What you say in 
jest about a wife, I take in earnest. I think you had 
better not be so sure. More cautious men than you 
are sometimes caught ; and, for my part, I am very 
wilHng that you should be caught, that so you might 
give to your country sons like yourself But whatever 
is to happen in this matter, I pray God that it may 
turn out well and happily. You see how nobly our 
friend Wotton has passed through his trial ; his bold- 
ness seems to convict you of cowardice. However, 
destiny had a good deal to do with these things ; there- 
fore you must not suppose that by your own fore- 
sight you can manage things so as to be altogether 
happy, and to have everything according to your 
wishes.''t 

True enough always, and especially true in Sidney's 
case. But, we can well imagine there were some wishes 
even now astir in his heart, which he would not be 
eager to communicate to his Huguenot monitor, per- 
haps not even to his mother, with whom he was now 
living in London. A building that overlooked the 
Thames, and stood exactly opposite to Paul's Wharf, 
was Sir Henry Sidney's town house. From it there was 
good access, either by land or by water, to the Court, 
when that was held in London. And it was the Queen's 

* Langueti Ejnstolce, p. 127. t Ibid., p. 140. 



it.lo. ] HIS mothee's troubles. 117 

especial desire that Ladj Sidney and her daughter Mary 
should be in attendance upon the Court.* 

Poor Lady Sidney ! Her life was not an easy one : 
she was always in some sort of trouble. In her youth, 
troubles weighty enough to break a heart of ordinary 
strength, had fallen upon her. Her father and one of 
her brothers had perished on the scaffold. Another 
brother had been released from imprisonment in the 
Tower just in time to die of illness there contracted. 
And now that one of her two surviving brothers stood 
very high in the royal favour, he does not seem to have 
much cared for her. Perhaps she saw more clearly 
than most strangers could into the selfish mind of the 
Earl of Leicester ; at any rate she had but little deal- 
ing with him. Of course she met him on friendly 
terms ; and at festivals like that at Kenilworth she 
would naturally be present to take sisterly place. But 
in time of difficulty she never, that I can find, applied 
to him for help ; generally her appeal was to Lord 
Burghley, or it might be to Sir Christopher Hatton, or 
Mr. Edward Dyer, or some other friend who could be 
trusted. She had a noble husband, it is true, and she 
could take a just pride in his brave, unselfish deeds. 
But he was very often far away from her, so overdone 
with work, and so harassed by royal neglect and caprice, 
that he could not do much to smooth for her the rugged 
paths of life. His very unselfishness was cause of one 
great trouble, for it made them poor, and Elizabeth 



* State Paper Office, MSS., Domestic Correspondence^ Elizabeth, 
vol. cviii. No. 74 ; Warrant Booky vol. i. p. 83. 



118 A MEMOIR OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. [Chap. iv. 

expected them to live in state and to use courtly ob- 
servances, beyond their means. " My present estate is 
such," she \vrote on one occasion, in a very touching 
letter to the Lord Treasurer, " by reason of my debts, 
as I cannot go forward with any honourable course of 
living ;" yet she must go forward, "for that I had, by 
her Majesty's commandment, prepared myself to attend 
the Court. But seeing it hath pleased her Majesty to 
hold this hard hand towards me, I am again thus bold 
to trouble your lordship for your comfortable direction 
how I may best in this case deal with her Majesty. For 
as I have often written and said, so must I still confess, 
I am partly bound to so great trust in your noble self 
as I cannot yield to repair to any other ; though I am 
presently greatly to seek, for my own part, what else to 
do than sorrow much her Majesty's unkindness towards 
me, because it brings me no small disgrace amongst 
such as are not determined to wish me well. There- 
fore, my very good lord, I humbly beseech you to 
vouchsafe to show me so much favour as to let me 
know your opinion what your lordship gathereth thereof, 
and what course it seemeth good unto you I shall take ; 
which, accordingly, I shall address myself unto, as to 
one in whose good and honourable advice my whole 
hope abideth. Trusting I shall not offend you here- 
with, since my heart is determined to honour you with 
all thankfulness, and so craving pardon for my long 
troubling you with my rude scribbling, I heartily wish 
your lordship all your most noble heart's desires." * 

* State Paper Office, MSS., Domestic Correspondence, Elizabeth, 
vol. cviii. No. 74. 



Tt%i] AT COURT. 119 

Of this sort were Ladj Mary Sidney's letters to Lord 
Burgliley. To us it seems very strange, very hard- 
hearted, that Queen Ehzabeth should have insisted upon 
the attendance at her Court of any lady who found her- 
self too poor to live in such style as was needful to her 
proper dignity. But the case seems much worse when 
we remember how Lady Sidney had another, perhaps 
even stronger, reason for wishing to live in privacy. 
Her broken health and scarred face, consequent upon 
her former nursing of her Majesty in the small-pox, 
ought surely to have been excuse enough. 

Yet now, if ever, she must have moved cheerfully 
in these gay circles, since everywhere she was hearing 
praise of the grace and handsomeness of her son Philip 
and her daughter Mary. 

Mary was at this time about twenty, and properly 
installed in Court life. We may fairly guess that she 
who, when an old woman, could entrance the world by 
the sweet beauty of her face, the gentleness of her 
womanly heart, the strength and keenness of her wit, 
and the depth and breadth of her learning, was not lost 
sight of now. But we can do no more than guess, for 
history is still silent about her. 

And if we would follow PhiKp into the gaieties of the 
Court, it must be partly by help of imagination. All 
we know is, that he did win favour everywhere, — with 
Queen and subject. One indication of this appears in a 
letter which his father wrote to him from Ireland in 
March, 1576. The letter introduced its bearer, an 
Irishman with a true Irish name. Sir Cormoch MacTeigh 
MacCarthy, who had come from Dublin to London to 



120 



A MEMOIR OF SIR THILIP SIDNEY. 



[Chap. IV. 



urge some suit, on whose behalf PhiHp was asked by 
his father to employ his influence with the Court.* 

Another and very different indication of Sidney's posi- 
tion has come down to us undated ; but it may, I think, 
be safely attributed to this stage of his history. It is 
a shoemaker's bill, which, for the sake of its oddness, no 
less than for its intrinsic interest, claims to be copied 
here. It runs thus : — 



Mr. PHILIP SIDNEY. 

First, for two pair of pantoffles and two pair of shoes 

for yourself . . 

Item, one pair of strong shoes for yourself 
Item, for one pair of boots for Mr. Wed dell . 
Item, for one pair of shoes for him 
Item, for four pair of shoes for your servant, the foot 

man ..... 

Item, for four pair of shoes for Thomas, your man 
Item, for one pair of white shoes and one pair of pan 

toffles for yourself 
Item, for one pair of Spanish leather shoes, double 

soled ..... 

Item, for three pair of shoes for three of the men 
Item, for one pair of pumps for Griffin, the man 
Item, for one pair of Spanish leather shoes for your 

self . , . . . 

Item, for a pair of shoes for your footman . 
Item, for soling a pair of shoes for Thomas 
Item, for one pair of buckled boots at, the pair, 

and one pair of winter boots for yourself . 
Item, eight pair of Spanish leather slippers for your 

self ...... 

Item, for four pair of shoes for Thomas 

Item, for six pair of shoes for Thomas, footman 

Item, for soling a pair of shoes for Thomas, your 

man . . . . . . 



6s. 


8d 




16c?. 


6s. 


8d. 




12d. 


4s. 


Sd. 


4s. 




4s. 


8d. 




20d. 



3s. 

8d. 

20d. 
14d. 

8d. 
8s. 
15s. 

17^. 8d. 
4s. 

7s. 



8d. 



* Sidneij Fapers, vol. i. p. 263. 



m^^o-?i'.] PHILIP AND HIS B00TMAK:EE. 121 

The bill not only gives us a glimpse of the sort of 
articles worn by Sidney and provided for his attendants, 
and tells us the relative price of them. There is yet 
more significance in the indorsement of the document, 
showing, as it does, the pecuniary position he now 
held. To his father's steward he wrote : — • ♦ 

" I have so long owed this bearer this expressed sum of money 
as I am forced, for the safeguard of my credit, to request you to let 
him have it presently, and this shaU be your suflG.cient discharge to 
be received at Midsummer quarter. I pray you, as you love me, 
perform it. By me, Philip Sidney,"* 

Sidney was now walking on his white shoes busily 
and daintily in and out of Court. But he does not 
seem to have yet reached so high a place in the Queen's 
favour as we find him holding at a later date. There 
is some inference to be drawn from the fact that, 
although his mother and sister made the customary 
presents to Ehzabeth on New Year's Day of 1576, 
there is no record of any having been tendered by 
him.f Perhaps at about that time he had even fallen 
into some discredit from his friendship with a nobleman 
now in disgrace. 

The offender was the Earl of Essex, who had returned 
from Ireland in the autumn of 1575, and was at present 
residing in London. Having been virtually deprived 
of the employment about which he had spent great 
part of his resources, he had come to make reasonable 
demands upon his Sovereign. Boldly, and with dignity, 
he made frequent suit for work whereby he might do 

* Zouch, p. 331. 

t Nicholls, Royal Progresses of Queen Elizabeth, vol. ii. pp. 1, 2. 



12:J A MEMOIR OF SIR PIIILTP SIDNEY. [Chap, i v. 

good service to his country and receive such honest 
wages as might help to the restoration of his fortunes. 
So much he considered due to him. " I assure myself/' 
he wrote, on the 13th of January, " that your Majesty, 
that hath uttered so honourable speeches of me and ray 
service,* — that hath stopped my course upon your own 
notion, not without some blemish to my credit, — who 
might have prevented with your only commandment 
both your charge and mine in the beginning, — will now 
so deal in the end as may increase my duty and prayer 
for you, and enlarge your own fame for cherishing your 
nobility and rewarding of true service.'' * That was 
plain language to utter to the Queen, who of all others 
was most covetous of servile homage and fulsome adu- 
lation from her subjects. She liked least of all just 
now, when Christmas gaieties were rife, and every one 
else was heaping up compliments, to be openly charged 
with injustice. It was as much as prudent, well mean- 
ing Burghley could do to gain her consent to some sort 
of compromise. But Essex would have no compromise. 
He claimed his due, and he would take no less. 

In this state matters rested for some months. The 
Earl had his family brought up from Chartley to his 
town residence, which was Durham House, situated in 
the Strand. t There he spent most of his time, and was 
visited by the few friends who cared to be friendly with 
him through his misfortunes. For Sidney it was easier 
to take boat at Paul's Wharf, and pass up the Thames 
as far as Durham House, than to go farther on to the 

* Devereux, Lives of the Earls of Essex, vol. i. p. 128. 
f- The site is marked b}" the present Essex Street. 



Jt'l'i. ] A Is^EW AIS^D TRUE FRIEND. 123 

Palace. And here there was more real pleasure for 
him. We have seen, and we shall see still more, that 
he had no great liking for pompous gatherings and 
scenes of splendid idleness. Of course he could not 
help being gratified by such gay spectacles as Kenil- 
worth presented, and he was never loth to dance with 
the fair ladies or tilt with the fine gentlemen whom 
Elizabeth gathered about her. But at heart he pre- 
ferred quiet and close personal intercourse with friends 
whom he could trust. " I would far rather have one 
pleasant chat with you, my dear Languet/^ we saw 
him writing from Venice in 1573, "than enjoy the 
magnificent magnificences of all these magnificoes." * 
So now he was glad enough to be a frequent visitor at 
Durham House. 

And the inmates were glad enough to receive him. 
The Earl of Essex, well-nigh exasperated by the long 
series of indignities he had received, and full of scorn 
for the fair pretences through which he had seen too 
clearly to the rotten core, knew how to value rightly the 
strong good sense and the sturdy honesty of a youth like 
Sidney. He had made frequent trial of the father, and 
here there was all the father's manly spirit born again in 
the son, with a great addition of mental strength and 
beauty. On the other hand, Sidney knew how to appre- 
ciate such regard as was here given him. Essex was just 
the man for him to understand and like. In almost every- 
thing there was sympathy between them. To Philip it 
was a real grief that, while a great battle for liberty of 

* Correspondence, p, 2U4. 



124 A MEMOIR OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. [Cdap. iv. 

thought and action was being waged upon the Conti- 
nent, England took the ignoble part of looker-on ; and 
the Earl often protested against the unworthy spirit 
prevalent with the Court, ready to sacrifice even religion 
for the sake of peace. Sidney had already learnt much 
from the stern Huguenot talk of Languet. Much more 
teaching, of the same sort, but imparted in a very differ- 
ent way, had now to come to him in the soldierly senti- 
ments and courtly tones of Essex. 

The Earl's daughter, Penelope, was thirteen years of 
age ; and I suppose that her pretty, frolicsome ways 
were not distasteful to her father's guest. Half girl, half 
woman, she was just old enough to begin exercising 
pleasant tyranny, and liked well to be tyrannical. If as 
yet there was no love between her and Philip, there was 
at any rate strong liking. Her father with pleased eye 
watched its growth. He began to call Philip his son 
by adoption ; ''' whereat, perhaps, the maiden looked 
angrily, yet in her heart was not displeased. 

In the Earl of Leicester's mind, however, there was 
very real displeasure stirring. He could not complain if 
his nephew innocently loved the daughter, since already 
there were foul thoughts rising in his mind about her 
mother. But he did not like the young man's intimacy 
with his rival ; still less did he like the friendly feehng 
displayed by Sir Henry Sidney. He had wished the 
Lord Deputy to write home in very vehement terms, 
requesting the return of Essex to Ireland. And the 
Lord Deputy had written, both pubhcly to the Queen's 

* Sidney Papers, vol. i. p. 1 08. 



1576 



21.] ON JOURNEY TO IRELAND. 125 



Council and privately to the Earl himself ; but it was in 
language full of sympathy with him, and of hearty desire 
to do him service. Thereat, as we are told, the Earl of 
Leicester took occasion of misliking the despatch, and 
of showing somewhat of offence against his brother-in- 
law. This was in the middle of March, 1576. * 

At last, after much delay and much stifling of ill- 
feehng on both sides, the Earl of Essex received ap- 
pointment on the 9 th of May. A grant of land was 
made to him, and he was to hold office as Earl-Marshal 
of Ireland. It was no very great recompense, but he 
seems to have been well pleased to leave London for 
work of any kind. He remained in England, however, 
more than two months. As if conscious of the doom 
that was before him, first he went down to Chartley, 
and made careful arrangements for the orderly pre- 
servation and disposal of his estates. He left Holy- 
head on the 22nd of July, and reached Dublin next 
day. 

Sidney also went to Ireland, on visit to his father ; f 
and there can be no question that he travelled in 
company with Essex. He was all equipped for his 
journey on the 21st of June, J but did not leave 
till the following month. It is likely that he spent 
part of the interval in visiting Oxford, and the neigh- 
bouring town of Ewelme, where his old tutor, Mr. 
Richard Dorset, was residing, and giving instruction to 

* Ibid., vol. i. p. 168. 

t State Paper Office, MSS., Irish Correspondencej Elizabethj vol. 
Ivi. Nos. 19, 20. 

X Langueti EpistolcB, p. 154., 



126 A MEMOIR OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. [Cuap. IV. 

Philip's younger brother, Robert.''^ One is amused 
at. Languet's fears, expressed in a letter written in 
August, about the trouble and danger to which his 
friend exposed himself. Evidently the learned doctor 
of theology and the experienced statesman knew 
nothing about Ireland or its distance from England. 
" I greatly admire the filial affection which prompts 
you,'' he said ; " but when I think of the rugged 
mountains of Wales, and the stormy Irish sea, and 
the unhealthy autumn season, I fall into a dreadful 
state of anxiety. Therefore, by the love which you 
once bore me, I implore you that, directly you get 
back to the protection and delights of your Court, 
you write to tell me of your safety, and rid me of 
the trouble which, as the old poet says, ' tortures me 
and rends my heart.' I daresay you will send us a full 
account of the marvels of Ireland, and a specimen of 
the birds which are said to grow upon trees there." f 

If Sidney went with Essex, he must have waited some 
days in Dublin, and then, on the 10th of August, have 
gone out to meet his father at a place twenty-eight 
miles from the capital. \ The party returned, that the 
Earl might be duly invested with his office. § Almost 
immediately afterwards the Lord Deputy hurried to 
Galway, where a spirit of insurrection was spreading. 
Philip did not look for barnacle geese, but he saw 
many strange scenes of national degradation. Every- 

* See a letter from Dorset to Sidney, printed by Zouch, p. 376. 

t Langueti EpistolcJB, p. 155. 

X Sidney Papers, vol. i. p. 128. 

§ Devereux, The Earls of Essex, vol. i. pp. 137, 138. 



M^ll ] IRISH EPISODES. 127 

where small rebellions were springing up. Incendi- 
aries were wandering about the country, planting evil 
thoughts among the people, and Sir Henry Sidney could 
do little more than follow on their heels, and execute 
the most blameworthy whom he could secure. It was a 
very miserable and a very hopeless state of things. 

Yet there was a grotesque side to the picture. Here 
and there the Lord Deputy was visited by landlords 
and petty leaders who, in a jerk of friendhness to the 
English cause, or in dread of English retribution, 
tendered submission. " There came also to me," he 
wrote, "a most famous feminine sea-captain, called 
Grainore O'Mailey, and offered her services unto me, 
wheresoever I would command her, with three galleys 
and two hundred fighting men, either in Ireland or 
Scotland. She brought with her her husband, for she 
was, as well by sea as by land, more than master's mate 
to him."* That is saying much, for Grainore's husband 
was Sir Richard Mac David Bourke, surnamed " of the 
iron," because he was so constantly at war with his 
neighbours that he never put off his armour, f But the 
Amazon was still more famous ; " the most notorious 
woman in all the coast of Ireland," says Sir Henry 
Sidney, who also tells us that his son Philip often spoke 
with her, and was much amused at her ways and 
words. 



* State Paper Office, MSS., Dortiestic Correspondence, Mizaheth, 
vol. clxi. 'No. 1. 

t Ulster Journal of Archceology, vol. v. p. 322. See also voL iv, 
p. 250, respecting a visit wliich this woman paid to England at a later 
period. 



128 A MEMOIR OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. [Chap. IV 

But Philip's amusement was soon checked. In Gal- 
way the news reached him that the Earl of Essex was 
grievously ill ; and he " being most lovingly and ear- 
nestly wished and written for '' by him, hastened to 
Dublin with all the speed he could make. 

Essex had fallen ill almost directly after assuming 
his office of Earl-Marshal. The sickness had begun 
on the 21st of August, and it lasted thirty days. 
During all that time he endured dreadful pain, and 
observed the steady wasting away of his life with manly 
resignation. " The only care he had of any worldly 
matter," wrote one who watched him from first to last,* 
" was for his children, to whom often he commended 
his love and blessing, and yielded many times, even 
with great sighs, most devout prayers unto God, that 
He would bless them and give them His grace to fear 
Him. For his daughters also he prayed, lamenting the 
time, which is so vain and ungodly, as he said, consider- 
ing the frailness of women, lest they should learn of the 
vile world.'' He talked much, also, of the state of 
England, saying he was very sorry for it ; " For they 
lean all to pohcy and let rehgion go ; but would to 
God they would lean to religion and let poli cy go ! '' 

On the 20th of September he wrote a noble letter to 
his Queen. " My estate of life," he said, " which in my 
conscience cannot be prolonged until the sun rise again, 
hath made me dedicate myself only to God, and gene- 
rally to forgive and ask forgiveness of the world, but 

* Probably Waterhouse, the friend of both Essex and Sidney. The 
account is prefixed to Heam's edition (1717) of Camden's Annals, 
vol. i. 



1576. 



2i. ] A BRAVE man's DEATH-BED. 129 



most specially of all creatures to ask pardon of your 
Majesty for all offences that you liave taken against me 
• — not only for my last letters wherewith I hear your 
Majesty was much grieved, but also for all other actions 
of mine that have been offensively conceived by your 
Majesty. My hard estate, most gracious Sovereign, 
having by great attempts long ebbed, even almost to 
the low-water mark, made me hope much of the flood 
of your abundance ; which when I saw were not in mine 
own opinion more plentifully poured upon me, drove 
me to that which I dare not call plainness, but, as a 
matter offering offence, do condemn it for error ; yet 
pardonable, madam, because I justify not my doings, but 
humbly ask forgiveness, even at such a time as I can 
offend no more.'''"' Next day he died, thirty-six years 
of age. 

During that month of gnawing pain he had thought 
often of Phihp Sidney, and had watched eagerly for 
his arrival. " Oh, that good gentleman ! " he had 
exclaimed, on the nineteenth of September, two days 
before his death, and when he seems to have lost all 
hope about the young man's coming to him — " Oh that 
good gentleman ! Have me commended unto him. 
And tell him I sent him nothing, but I wish him well 
— so well that, if God do move their hearts, I wish 
that he might match with my daughter. I call him 
son — he so wise, virtuous, and godly. If he go on in 
the course he hath begun, he will be as famous and 
worthy a gentleman as ever England bred.'' 

* Murdin, JBurghley Papers (1769), p. 300. 



130 A MEMOIR OF SIR PTIILTP SIDNEY. [Cmap. iv. 

That message was told to Philip a few days later, as 
he stood weeping over the corpse of his friend. With 
all his hurrying, he had not been able to reach Dublin 
in time to see him alive. England had lost one of its 
most earnest and high-minded heroes, no whit less a 
hero because his chivalric temper and blunt generosity 
often led him into error and misfortune. Philip had 
lost one of his best and dearest friends. 

Sir Henry Sidney, busy in Galway, did not hear the 
sad news for some time. " I left him,'' he wrote, " a 
lusty, strong, and pleasant man ; but before I returned, 
his breath was out of his body, his body out of this 
country, and undoubtedly his soul in Heaven." '^ 

The suddenness of the Earl's death, and the unnatural 
pains which he endured throughout his illness, inclined 
men to the suspicion that he had been poisoned. The 
Lord Deputy immediately instituted a careful inquiry as 
to the circumstances of the case, but without result, f 
No proof of poisoning could be found. Still less was 
there anything to point out a probable or possible 
poisoner. At a later date the Lord Deputy's own 
brother-in-law, the Earl of Leicester, was anonymously 
accused of the crime. The jealousy and hatred with 
which he had regarded his former rival, still more his 
unworthy passion for Lady Essex, gave colour to the 
charge. But we have not the smallest reasonable 
ground for admitting it. 

Equally unfounded, as it seems, were the popular 
imputations upon the fair fame of the Countess of Essex. 

* Sidney Papers, vol. i. p. 141. 
t Ibid., vol. i. p. 141. 



1576 



'li. ] THE TEACHING OF TWO EAELS. 131 



She may not, in these last years, have had much love for 
her slighted husband, far too noble a man for her to 
appreciate ; and perhaps even before his death she may 
have had some evil affection for the Earl of Leicester. 
It is certain that she was married to that nobleman two 
years after becoming a widow ; and it is likely that 
at an earlier date she had been united to him by 
private rites. These were her offences • w^e can charge 
her with none greater. 

I have been led to speak of these affairs, and to 
dwell with some detail upon the death of Essex, because 
Sidney was intimately concerned therein. Had Essex 
lived, Philip would doubtless have become his son-in-law. 
As it was, the small connection he had had with him 
touched his w^hole career. Strongly attached to this 
»Earl, he received from him an influence directly opposite 
to that which came from Leicester. The one nobleman, 
floating gaily upon the tide of royal favour, was anxious 
to guide his nephew in attempting a hke perilous fortune. 
But the other had been shipwrecked because he was too 
honest to trim his sails and to steer his boat in the way 
appointed to all who would then attain courtly success, 
and his love for the young man led him eloquently and 
earnestly to show him the dangers of the undertaking, 
the certain ruin which must ensue either to his worldly 
fortunes or to his spiritual integrity. He would have 
him study to please and to obey the Queen, but it must 
be by upright ways, and with full regard to the far 
higher duties that he owed to his own conscience and 
to his Maker. Philip listened to the precept and watched 
the example of both Earls. He learnt much from 

K 2 



132 A MEMOIR OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. [c.iap. iv. 

Leicester ; but he learnt far more from Essex. The 
lesson was very solemnly taught in the death-bed scene 
we have been witnessing. It could never be forgotten 
as long as there was recollection of the noble message 
we have heard. 

The remains of Essex were brought over to Wales 
and deposited, on the 29th of November, two months 
after his death, at Carmarthen, where he had held pro- 
perty. Long before this, Sidney had returned to the 
English Court. There the appearance of things had 
been considerably altered by the recent catastrophe. 
The new Earl, a pretty, clever lad just ten years old, 
was favourably regarded by the Queen. Leicester, 
having reasons of his own for wishing now to stand 
well with the family, and moved, it may be, by a 
genuine kindliness, gave to him and his kindred generous . 
treatment. Moreover, he was taken under the special 
protection of Lord Burghley, in whose household, from 
the beginning of the new year, he resided. Every one 
wished well to the children. All old hates seemed to 
be dead, and a great deal of new friendship seemed to 
be awakened. Mr. Edward Waterhouse, a thriving 
favourite of both Essex and Sidney, wrote, on the 14th 
of November, to the Lord Deputy, saying, " I protest 
unto your Lordship, that I do not think that there is 
at this day so strong a man in England of friends as 
the little Earl of Essex, nor any man more lamented 
than his father since the death of King Edward."^^ 

" And all these Lords that wish well to the children," 

* Sidney Papers^ vol. i. p. 147. 



^%t^2-r^' ] MAERIAGE PROJECTS. 133 

remarked Waterhouse, in the same letter, " and I suppose 
all the best sort of the English Lords besides, do expect 
what will become of the treaty between Mr. Philip and 
mj Lady Penelope. Truly, my Lord, I must say to 
your Lordship, as I have said to my Lord of Leicester 
and Mr. Phihp, the breaking off from their match, if 
the default be on your parts, will turn to more dis- 
honour than can be repaired with any other marriage 
in England."''' 

That is all the information left to us concernins: 
Sidney's occupation during the few weeks before and 
after the Christmas of 1576. We know, indeed, that 
he was thinking much about European politics, and we 
shall see presently the issue of his thoughts. But^ 
his chief home business, doubtless, was with Penelope 
Devereux. We may guess something of his state of 
mind and heart after reading a sonnet which he may 
have written at about this time : 

*' Since, shunning pain, I ease can never find. 

Since bashful dread seeks where he knows me harmed. 
Since will is won, and stopped ears are charmed, 

Since force does faint, and sight doth make me blind, 

Since, loosing long, the faster still 1 bind. 

Since naked sense can conquer reason armed. 
Since heart, in chilling fear, with ice is warmed. 

In fine, since strife of thought but mars the mind — • 

I yield, O Love ! unto thy loathed yoke ; 

Yet craving law of arms, whose rule doth teach 

That, hardly used, whoever prison broke. 
In justice quit, of honour made no breach ; 

Whereas, if I a grateful guardian have. 

Thou art my lord, and I thy vowed slave, "f 



* Sidney Papers, vol. i. p. 147. 

t MiscelUneous Works (Oxford, 182&), p. 216. 



CHAPTER V. 

EMBASSAGE. 

1577. 

Twenty months had not passed since Sidney's return 
from the Continent before he went thither on a second 
visit. This time, however, he quitted England not as a 
quiet student bearing passport for himself, three servants, 
and four horses, to make a tour for the purpose of learn- 
ing languages and gaining school-boj knowledge, but 
as the Ambassador of Queen Ehzabeth to the new 
Emperor of Germany, Rodolph the Second. 

Maximilian, the former Emperor, had died on the 
12th of October, 1576, at the age of fifty, and in the 
twelfth year of his reign. His death caused a serious 
change in the aspect of European politics. A wise 
monarch and an amiable man, he had nobly done 
his work in the very difficult position he had occu- 
pied. Bound by close traditionary ties to King PhiliiD 
of Spain, he had quietly offered a steady resistance to 
Philip's wicked and ambitious plans. Although a 
Catholic, he had given open encouragement to the 
Protestant movement, had allowed the Huguenots to 
erect churches and conduct worship whenever and how- 
ever they chose, and had admitted the wisest and 



^t 2'-^. J EUROPEAN- TEOUBLES. 135 

worthiest of them to offices of honour in the Empire. As 
far as he was able, he had given aid to the cause of liberty 
for w^hich in the Netherlands men fought so zealously ; 
and always, by his toleration of free thought and sanc- 
tion of independent life, he had set a grand example. 
But with Eodolph's succession to the Empire, every- 
thing had been altered. Trained by a fanatical mother, 
and for some time educated in Spain and in Spanish 
policy by Philip, who designed him for his heir, his 
naturally noble mind had been corrupted by super- 
stition and bigotry, and made the thrall of Jesuit 
influence. Among his first acts were the persecution of 
Protestants, the banishment of their leaders, and the 
forcing of orthodox catechisms upon their schools. 

Nor was Maximilian's death the only disaster that 
at this time fell upon Germany. Two days after the 
event, Frederick the Third, the Elector Palatine, also 
died. He had stirred up some strife among his 
people by the forcible introduction of Calvinism, 
and his elder son Lewis was now causing fresh con- 
fusion by the compulsory establishment of Lutheran 
doctrines and the attempted extirpation of all Calvinist 
tenets, while John Casimir, the other son, w^as a sturdy 
champion of the proscribed creed. Therefore bigots of 
both sects, each receiving much encouragement, fought 
desperately for the mastery, and tolerant, charitable 
men hung down their heads and were heavy-hearted as 
to the issue of the conflicts. 

English politicians were not heedless of these troubles, 
and we may well beheve that they occupied much of 
Sidney's mind during the few winter months he 



136 A MEMOIR OF Sl-R PHILIP SIDNEY. [Cuap. v. 

spent in London. Freshly returned from a long and 
close observation of the state of parties in Europe, and 
fully imbued with the principles of his friend Hubert 
Languet, he was entitled, and — it is likely — not at all 
unwilhng, to express his opinions in public. We may 
imagine that he talked often about these things, and 
that in courtly circles he already won respect for his 
honest thoughts and apt expression of them. At any 
rate, Queen Elizabeth and her counsellers, Burghley 
and Leicester and Walsingham, thought him fit, though 
only twenty- two years old, to be entrusted with foreign 
work of a delicate nature. He was chosen to go to 
Vienna and Heidelberg with messages of condolence for 
the orphan Princes, and with assurances of the Queen's 
good-will towards them on their accession to power.* 

The work, indeed, was delicate rather than important. 
Sidney hardly liked to undertake it, deeming, we learn, 
that it sorted better with his youth than with his spirit 
for him to go out to deliver a couple of formal letters 
and a few formal sentences of professed sympathy, f 
Before accepting the office, therefore, he asked that such 
instructions should be prepared as would give him 
scope, in passing through German}^, to confer with these 
and other Princes about the state of Europe as it affected 
the welfare of Protestantism and the progress of national 
liberty. In other words, he claimed the right of doing 
anything that seemed to him expedient for encouraging 
union among the various Reformed States and spurring 



* Hollingslied, vol. iii. p. 1654. 

t Fulke GreviUe, p. 48. 



Mth.] PHILIP AS AM3ASSAD0E. 137 

them on to more vigorous labour in the common cause 
of freedom.* This demand was acceded to, and on the 
7th of February, 1577, a suitable code of directions "was 
issued to him. f 

Furnished with these, and with a private letter of 
introduction from the Earl of Leicester to Prince Casi- 
mir, J Sidney set out on his mission upon one of the 
last few days in February. With him went his friend 
Fulke Greville and a number of other well-born and 
courtly gentlemen, partly as company to himself, 
partly as adding dignity to the embassage. § The 
young Ambassador was very willing to make a show of 
his high office. Over the houses at which he lodged, 
during his journey, he caused to be fixed a large hand- 
some tablet, setting forth his arms and ancestry, and 
announcing his business in the following terms : 1| 

|Pr0-r^gxs |jifernifB filii, €amxixxm Warfoid 

Journeying thus pompously, and being met on the 
road by his friend Languet, Sidney proceeded to Heid- 
elberg, the capital of the Palatinate. He reached the 
town about the I7th or ISth of March, but found that 

* Fulke Greville, p. 49. 

t British Museum, Had. MSS., No. 36, fols. 295 — 298 ; aud 
Lansdorvne MSS., No. 155, fols. 187—190. 

t Dated 22nd Feb., 1577. Cotton. MSS., Galba, B xi. fol. 412. ' 

§ Languet I Eijistolm, p. 162. 

II Collins, Introduction to the Sidney Papers, p. 100. 



138 A MEMOIR OF Sill PHILIP SIDNEY. [Chap, v 

the Elector Lewis was absent. The most important 
part of his commission had, therefore, to be postponed : 
but he had interviews with John Casimir, to whom he 
presented his uncle Leicester's letter of introduction, 
besides some special messages from the Queen. 

Casimir was the son whom the lately dead Elector had 
most dearly loved. Moreover, in England, whither he 
had probably come on a visit at some previous time, he 
was better known and liked than was his brother. 
Sidney, obeying his instructions, assured him of the 
especial love and friendly inclination which Elizabeth 
bore to him, as well on account of his own princely 
virtues and known affection for her, as for his father's 
sake.'''' "His answer," wrote the Ambassador in his 
despatch to Mr. Secretary Walsingham, '' was that her 
Majesty indeed had great reason to be sorry for the loss 
of his father, having been in truth so true a friend and 
servant unto her : of his other good parts he left to be 
witnessed by the things he had done in the advance- 
ment of virtue and religion. For himself he could not 
think himself bound enough to her Majesty for this 
signification of her goodness towards him ; and, of the 
virtues of his father there was none he would seek more 
to follow than his duty and goodwill to her Majesty. 
This he did in very good terms, and with a countenance 
well witnessing it came from his heart." f 

After these compliments had passed, Sidney urged 
him to live in unity with his brother, a matter of very 
serious moment to the cause of Christianity. For, he 

* Harl. MSS., No. 36, fol. 295. 

t Cotton. MSS., Galba, B xi. fol. 387. 



1577. 
JEt. 2?. 



] IN CONFERENCE WITH CASIMIR. 139 



said, as they took opposite sides in the strife between 
Calvinists and Lutherans, unbrotherly contest between 
them would rouse great scandal all over Europe and be 
a real hindrance to the truth. Casimir acknowledged 
all this ; but what, he asked, could he do '? Lewis had 
already set up Lutheranism in the Upper Palatinate, 
which lay in Bavaria, and there was risk that he would 
soon effect a like change in the other part of the state. 
For himself he had made public profession of his adher- 
ence to his father's views ; and if good and learned 
preachers of the pure doctrine were persecuted, what 
choice had he but to help and defend them 1 The 
Ambassador approved of this mind, and wrote home to 
say that he hoped well ; for Lewis was naturally good- 
hearted, and only went to these extremes through a 
mistaken conscientiousness, which Casimir would be 
likely, by his wise and manly influence, to set right."" 

There was much other discourse between Sidney and 
Casimir, during these few days. Sidney made careful 
inquiries as to what was the probable policy, in affairs 
both of state and of religion, of the Emperor Rodolph ; 
how the Princes of Germany were affected in French 
and Low-Country concerns ; what forces were preparing 
in the Palatinate ; what the Count himself meant to 
do.f One matter is too characteristic to be passed by. 
It seems that the Queen of England had lent some 
money to the former Palatine, and it was a part of 
Sidney's commission to try and get it back again. 
But the Heidelberg exchequer was almost bankrupt. 

* Cotton. MSS., Galba, B si. fol. 387- 
t Ibid. 



140 A MEMOIR OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. [Chap. v. 

The King of France luad fiiiled to fulfil his engagement 
for the paying of some heavy sums ; and as a con- 
sequence, neither Elizabeth nor even the soldiery led by 
their knights, could receive what was due. " I told him 
it would be a cause to make her Majesty withdraw from 
like loans, as the well paying would give her cause to 
do it in greater sums. He was grieved with my urging 
of him, and assured me that if he could get the pay- 
ment, he would rather die than not see her Majesty 
honourably satisfied. Then I pressed him for certain 
jewels and hostages I had learned he had in pawn of the 
king. He told me they already belonged to the knights ; 
but if her Majesty would buy any of them, she might 
have a good bargain." The business was not altogether 
in a satisfactory condition, but, Sidney added, " Truly, 
by what I find in the Prince, I do hold myself in good 
behef that her Majesty, within a year or two, shall 
be honourably answered it." * 

Casimir was rather a hot-headed, weak-minded 
youth, with no lack of good intentions, but not much 
ability to carry them rightly to their end. However, he 
had many good parts ; and these Sidney appreciated. 
The diplomatic visit caused a solid friendship to be 
formed between the two. 

On the 23rd of March, the Ambassador and his suite 
passed out of Heidelberg and proceeded -^ Amberg, 
whither the Elector Lewis had gone and where he was 
thought to be still lodging. But he had left that town 
before their arrival ; so Sidney, resolving that at pre- 

* Cotton. MSS., Galba, B xi. fol. 387. 



Mt'^l:2_ ] THE EMPEROE RODOLPH. 141 

sent he would not seek him anywhere else, went on to 
Prague, then the residence of the Emperor and his 
family.* 

Exactly two years before, Philip had quitted the city 
on his return to England. He had come there in com- 
pany with Languet to be present at Maximilian's 
opening of the Bohemian Diet. On that occasion the 
Emperor had granted to the Bohemians full freedom in 
religious matters, and promised that he and his suc- 
cessor would protect them in the same. It was true, 
he had said, that his sons were attached to the religion 
men called Catholic, but he had so taught them to 
love truth and honesty wherever it appeared, that 
holders of a different creed should have no reason for 
fearing them.f The good man neither thought how 
soon his eldest son should have to succeed him, nor 
rightly estimated the effect of his own teaching as com- 
pared with the secret influence of the Jesuits. But 
everything looked pleasant then, and the members of 
the Diet, in return for the great favours done to them, 
gladly elected Kodolph King of Bohemia. 

Now that Maximilian was dead, and that Rodolph 
was Emperor of Germany, affairs were greatly altered. 
The Bohemians were too sturdy in the principles of 
rehgious freedom they inherited from Huss and Jerome 
to admit so much change as elsewhere Rodolph was 
effecting ; but even they had heavy grounds for fear, 
when they observed the austere bearing of the Emperor, 
the favour in which he held the crowds of priests who 

* Cotton. MSS., Galba, B xi. fol. 363. 
t Langueti Epistolcc., pp. 133, 134. 



142 A MEMOm OF SIR rillLIP SIDNEY. (Cap. v 

surrounded liim, and the policy he steadily pursued. 
The skies looked black enough after the sunshine they 
had been enjoying. 

So it Tvas when Sidney entered Prague on this new 
visit. He arrived on Maundy Thursday,'-' and Avit- 
nessed, it may be, the solemn services which were 
performed upon Good Friday, and the less mournful 
ceremonies of Easter Sunday. On Easter Monday he 
had his first audience with the Emperor and, after pre- 
senting his letters, he made suitable discourse. 

He began by assuring Rodolph of the great grief 
felt by his mistress and all England at the loss of so 
worthy a Prince as the late Emperor had been. It was 
a loss, he said, which Europe could ill endure, for Maxi- 
milian had not blessed Germany alone, by holding its 
regions in good peace with one another, and by staying 
from invasion that great enemy of Christendom, the 
Turk. He had given to the world help most neces- 
sary in this present time, when such weakness was 
produced by the divisions of those who bore the 
name and title of Christian Princes, and had made 
great proof of his singular foresight and wisdom. It 
was a loss, moreover, which fell more heavily upon the 
Queen of England than upon any other, seeing that she 
had ever placed in him the firm trust of personal 
friendship, and had ever received great honour at his 
hands, f 

The expression of grief for the dead was followed by 
assurances of goodwill towards the Hving. The Ambas- 

* Cotton. MSS.y Galba, B xi. fol. 363. 
t Ibid. Harl. MSS., No. 36, fol. 296. 



^^^^2. ] HIS SPEECH BEFOEE THE EMPEROE. 143 

sador went on to say that the Queen had sent him to 
ask that she might be closely hnked in friendship with 
the son of such a father. She had good hope of him 
that he would imitate his father in his private virtues 
and in the manner of his government. There, 
surely, he had a pattern worthy of imitation. In the 
name of the Queen — so Sidney proceeded in his address 
— he besought him to do rightly the work upon which 
he was just entering. He had been suddenly called to 
be the chief Potentate in Europe : upon the direction 
of his government depended the well-doing or the ruin 
of Christendom : oh ! that he would resolve to follow 
in the steps of the noble Emperor who was gone ! The 
speaker besought him with honest purpose to embrace 
peace both at home and abroad. He urged him, if he 
valued his own welfare or the progress of the Empire, 
to give no ear to such violent counsel as some martial 
and turbulent courtiers are apt to offer to young princes 
— men who rather foster their ambitious and private 
passions than warn them that, of all idle wars, the issues 
are uncertain, the benefits none, and the harms mani- 
fest. For wars, at best, are full of danger, and to be 
used for remedying national maladies ; — just as, in pro- 
curing the health of a diseased body, cutting and 
searing are employed — only in cases of great peril and 
of great necessity.""" 

In speaking thus far, Sidney had done Httle more 
than repeat and expand the words of his instructions. 
But the subject seemed to grow more important in his 

* Earl. MSS., No. 36, p. 29G. 



144 A MEMOIR OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. [Chap. V. 

eyes as he proceeded. He saw that at that moment 
evil counsels were working, bad influences were gaining 
power. He implored the Emperor and his ministers to 
rouse themselves, and, looking around, to see what 
dangers were threatening them and becoming greater 
every hour. And whence came they '? whence, save 
from that fatal conjunction of Eome's undermining 
superstitions with the commanding forces of Spain ? 

At those bold words the haughty Emperor and his 
frigid courtiers, trained in all the hard coldness of 
Spanish formalities, were startled into unwonted show 
of interest ; wonder being so great, that there was little 
place for wrath. Sidney saw his advantage, and pur- 
sued the theme. This, he declared, was no time for 
listless faith. Neither its inland situation, nor its vast 
multitude, nor its combined strength, nor its wealth, 
could rescue the great German commonwealth from its 
threatened dangers. Such things might have served 
for protection before, but they were not strong enough 
now ; for there was formed against it a more baneful 
league than had ever yet been known. The new leaguers 
made not open war by proclamation, they fought 
craftily ; — what, indeed, but craft could be expected in 
a strife where Rome was actor ? Their plan was to 
begin and half gain the battle by the invisible conquer- 
ing of souls. What else was the meaning of all these 
newly-fashioned ways of filling men's minds with pre- 
tences of holiness — these specious rites — these honour- 
ings of saints — these fabrications of miracles — these in- 
stitutions of new orders and reformations of old ones 
— these dispensations given to Papists, and cursings 



if 22. J HIS SPEECH BEFORE THE EMPEROR. 145 

and thunderbolts of excommunication heaped upon 
heretics 1 By such agencies they aimed to get posses- 
sion of the weak, to discourage the strong, to divide the 
doubtful, and to lull all inferior powers to sleep — just 
as, by calhng them allies, the ancient Eomans were 
wont to become the lords of foreign nations. And when 
this Romish part of the victory was done, then would 
follow the Spanish half of the conquest, less spiritual 
but more forcible. By making shrewd confederacies, 
by stirring up factions, by briberies, by false treaties, 
by commercial leagues, by marriage alliances, by changes 
of friendship, by open war, and by all other acts of 
advantageous power, the triumph over all Germanic 
liberty would be secured. 

Was it not so '? Had not those two nations, Rome 
and Spain, united in a brotherhood of evil, already 
shed so much blood that they were justly become the 
terror of all governments 1 Even now there was but 
one way of withstanding this great power. It could be 
balanced by no other means than the formation of a 
general league in religion. This was the only safety, — 
Sidney reiterated in conclusion ; — but here there was 
real safety. " To associate by an uniform bond of con- 
science for the protection of religion and liberty, will 
prove a more sohd union and will symbohze far better 
against their tyrannies, than any factious combination 
in policy, any league of state or other traffic of civil or 
martial humours possibly can do.'' '" 

There the Ambassador ended his speech. The 

* Fiilke Greville, pp. 49—52. 



146 A MEMOIR OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. rcuAPV. 

Emperor Rodolph was not convinced by it. Speaking 
in Latin, he tendered his thanks to Elizabeth for her 
sympathy and goodwill. As to the policy he should 
adopt in the present troublous times, he spoke haughtily. 
God, he said, who was the protector of the Empire, 
would provide him with fit counsel for its government, 
and would help him worthily to imitate his father's wise 
example. Then he wandered off into a discussion of 
general affairs, avoiding the special matters upon which 
Sidney sought to be informed ; and so ended the con- 
ference. Judging from this day's experience and from 
other observations, Sidney concluded that Eodolph was 
a treacherous, Jesuit-bound and " extremely Spanio- 
lated'' man, of few words and sullen disposition, with 
none of his father's winning behaviour towards strangers, 
yet with a certain power by which he kept men con- 
stant to him."'- 

" The next day," wrote the Ambassador in his 
despatch, " I delivered her Majesty's letters to the 
Empress, with the singular signification of her Majesty's 
great goodwill unto her, and her Majesty's wishing of 
her to advise her son to a wise and peaceable govern- 
ment. Of the Emperor deceased I used but few words, 
because in truth I saw it bred some trouble unto her to 
hear him mentioned in that kind. She answered me 
with many courteous speeches and great acknowledging 
of her own beholdingness to her Majesty. And for 
her son, she said she hoped he would do well ; but that, 
for her own part, she had given herself from the world, 
and would not greatly stir from thenceforward in it. 

^ Cotton. MSS., Galba, B. xi. fol. 363. 



1577. 
-Sit. 22 



] AT THE IMPERIAL COUET. 147 



Then did I deliver to the Queen of France her letter, 
she standing by the Empress ; using such speeches as I 
thought were fit for her double sorrow and her Majesty's 
goodwill unto her, confirmed by her wise and noble 
governing of herself in the time of her being in France/' 
This lady was Elizabeth, daughter of Maximilian and 
widow of that Charles the Ninth who had died wretch- 
edly three years ago, tormented by delirious recollec- 
tions of the Saint Bartholomew massacre. His gentle 
wife had done all she could to promote peace between 
the opposite parties in France, whereby, if no other 
good was done, she had earned the respect of all right- 
minded thinkers on both sides. She was now living in 
retirement with her mother, until joining the sister- 
hood of Saint Anne. " Her answer was full of humble- 
ness, but she spake so low that I could not understand 
many of her words." "' 

The few remaining days of his residence with the 
Imperial Court were mainly spent by Sidney in careful 
noting of the persons and parties around him. More- 
over, he had old friends of his own to converse with ; 
and especially there was Languet with him, very 
pleased to see his darling Philip again, and very 
proud of the high station which he was filhng. 

The Ambassador quitted Prague near the end of 
April, after taking part in some further interviews 
and farewell speeches. As a memento of his visit, 
he bore away a splendid gold chain, the present of 
the Emperor Rodolph.f 

* Cotton. M8S., Galba, B. xi. fol. 363. 
t Sidney Fapers, vol. i. p. 193. 

L 2 



148 A MEMOIR OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. [Chap. v. 

On the last day of the month the lordly company 
reached Heidelberg, whither the Elector Lewis had ere 
now returned ; and Sidney lost no time in performing 
that part of his commission wdiich had been deferred. 
On the 1st of May he had audience. To Lewis he 
repeated Queen Elizabeth's messages of condolence and 
persuasions to unity between him and his brother. 
Lewis made a very long speech, full of proper thanks to 
her Majesty and loud praises of his worthy father. He 
also professed himself grateful for the recommendation 
to concord, and talked much of common-place about the 
necessity of brotherly love, but said nothing at all con- 
cerning his own purposes or his opinion of Casimir. 
" One thing," said Sidney, " I was bold to add in my 
speech, to desire him, in her Majesty's name, to have 
merciful consideration of the Church of the Religion 
so notably established by his father, as in all Germany 
there is not such a number of excellent men ; and truly 
any man would rue to see the desolation of them. I 
laid before him, as well as I could, the dangers of the 
mightiest Princes of Christendom, by entering into like 
violent changes, the wrong he should do his worthy 
father utterly to abolish that he had instituted, and so, as 
it were, to condemn him, besides the example he should 
give his posterity to handle him the like. This I 
emboldened myself to do, seeing, as methought, great 
cause for it — either to move him at least to have some 
regard for her Majesty's sake, or, if that followed not, 
yet to leave that public testimony with the Church of 
Germany, that her Majesty was careful of them — 
besides that I learned Prince Casimir had used her 



1577, 



f 22. ] THE STATE OF CHRISTENDOM. 149 



Majesty's authority in persuading his brother from it." 
To all this Lewis was wilhng to listen, although at first 
he made no answer at all, and afterwards just replied 
vaguely that he had no personal misliking of the great 
Calvinist doctors and their followers, and that he would 
gladly do much for the Queen's sake, yet that he could 
not help acting like the other Princes of the Empire.'^' 
That was all Sidney could gather from the Elector, and 
he was by no means satisfied with that. 

On the whole, he found very little to cheer him in 
this embassage. The Protestant League, which his 
whole heart was set upon forming, and towards estab- 
lishing which he had asked for special authority to be 
inserted in his instructions, found favour with none of 
the Princes of Germany, save Prince Casimir, the 
Landgrave, and the Duke of Brunswick ; and they 
were disposed to enter upon it rather out of compli- 
ment to Queen Elizabeth, than for a stronger reason. 
The Protestant potentates, Sidney mournfully de- 
clared, had no care but how to grow rich and to please 
their senses. The Elector of Saxony, forgetful of his 
duty to make common cause on behalf of the Reformed 
Religion, was wrapping himself up in Calvinism, and 
growing bitter against the true Lutherans. The others 
were of the same mind, thinking only how they could 
be safe, though all the world were on fire around them.f 

This was a very wretched state of things. It showed 
the degeneracy into which Protestantism had already 



* Cotton. MSS., Galba, B. xi. fol. 364. 
t Ibid., fol. 388. 



150 A MEMOIR OP SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. [CHAr. v. 

fallen. Hero was Europe beaten under a great storm, 
gathered from all quarters. Spain and Rome were 
leagued in a fierce crusade, the purpose of which was 
no less than the utter overthrow of all liberty, both 
civil and religious. The Turks were watching their 
time, and, as soon as fitting opportunity occurred, Sidney 
thought they would use their strength and make the 
Christian states the slaves of a tyranny only less bad 
than that of Spain. And the Reformers, except here 
and there a few, were wasting all their energies, and 
giving the lie to all their professions of large Christian 
charity, in foohsh bickerings about the tenets of Luther 
and Calvin, in paltry quarrels about rituals and confes- 
sions of faith, and, worse than all, in party strife and 
personal jealousies. Even the Bohemians, who in Maxi- 
milian's time had been so earnest to have churches of 
the Reformed Religion granted to them, were now 
becoming cold-hearted, and seemed contented with the 
thraldom which was fastening upon them. Of only a 
very few men, such as Prince Casimir and William, 
Landgrave of Hpsse, could Sidney speak at all cheer- 
fully.''^ " Every day," he wrote, " my hope grows less 
and less." f 

In this mood he went, on the 4th of May, to confer 
with Casimir, who was then lodging at Kaiserslautern ; 
and thence he passed quickly to the residence of the 
Landgrave William ;| but of neither interview is any 
record left. In all these journeys Hubert Languet 



* Cotton. MSS., Galba, B. xi. fol. 388. 

t Ibid., fol. 364. t Ibid., fol. 364. 



mk ] PUBLIC AND PRIYATE BUSINESS. 151 

appears to have been his companion. They were 
together in Cologne about the middle of May, and there 
they parted. " I received incredible delight from, our 
intercourse during so many days," wrote the old man, a 
month later ; " but I feel now just as they do who 
gladly drink too much water when they are hot and 
get a fever in consequence. My great pleasure brought 
about a greater sorrow than I ever before endured ; and 
it has far from left me now.'' '"" 

From Cologne Sidney was very anxious to go into 
Flanders on a private visit to William, Prince of 
Orange. But Languet objected. He besought Philip to 
be very careful how he gave to evil-wishers the smallest 
chance of speaking ill of him ; saying that thus far he 
had fulfilled the Queen's commission in a manner 
worthy of the highest approbation and reward : it would 

* Langueti EpistolcF'j p. 163. During the days spent at Cologne, 
some important business was discussed between Languet and Sidney, 
and it was often referred to in their subsequent correspondence ; but 
the allusions are so guarded, and there are so many missing letters, 
that the matter is wholly wrapped up in mystery. All we know is 
that Languet, on behalf of some mutual friends, made an important 
proposal to Sidney which he liked well, both on its own account and 
as a token of their high opinion of him ; but he replied that he could 
determine nothing without first consulting his kindred and the Queen, 
from both of whom he expected great opposition. {Epistolce, pp. 1 64, 
165, 171, &c.) It is possible that this may have been a scheme for 
Sidney's marriage to some noble lady of Germany ; and we know what 
a zealous matchmaker the Huguenot bachelor was. It is more pro- 
bable that the project had a political meaning ; perhaps that Philip 
should reside on the continent and entirely devote himself, as states- 
man, or as soldier, or as both, to the great battle then being waged 
for every sort of freedom. But there are reasons against this supposi. 
tion, as well as against every other that can be made. The matter^ 
however, whatever it may have been, seems to have issued in nothing. 



152 A MEMOIR OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. [Chap v. 

not do for him now to incur the least risk of her dis- 
pleasure. Sidney did not take the advice very kindly. 
He had often blamed Languet for hindering him from 
going to E-ome ; he now repeated his reproaches, and 
charged his friend with always checking him in his de- 
sires to gain acquaintance with great persons and great 
places. Both men were ver}^ pleased when an unex- 
pected letter arrived from Queen Elizabeth, bidding her 
Ambassador come home by way of Flanders, where he 
was to present her Majesty's congratulations to the 
Prince upon the birth of his son.'"' 

By this commission Sidney was enabled, not only to 
see the great champion of liberty in the Netherlands, 
but also to meet William's famous antagonist, Don John 
of Austria. When or where the meeting took place 
is not stated ; but it probably occurred in Brussels 
towards the end of May. On the first of the month 
Don John had made a splendid entrance into that city, 
as newly appointed Governor General of the Provinces 
on behalf of his Majesty, King Philip of Spain. It was 
a spectacle in keeping with the haughty and ambitious, 
but withal chivalrous and half generous, character of 
the Prince. He, the hero of Lepanto, had come to the 
Netherlands with all possible show of dignity and 
strength, resolved to spare no effort in crushing the 
long rebellious people. Moreover, it was currently 
reported, if not everywhere beheved, that Don John 
had another and a more personal object in view. Just 
thirty-two years old, he thought he might be no unfit 
husband for the captive Queen of Scotland, who was 

* Langueti EpistolcB, pp. 160, 161. 



if 22. ] DON JOHif^ OF AUSTRIA. 153 

now thirty-five. He was waiting for a suitable oppor- 
tunity of secretly or openly rescuing Mary from her 
confinement, and that done, he fancied, or his ardent 
friends and timid enemies fancied for him, that it 
would be easy to re-establish her dominion in Scot- 
land ; why not let her be Queen of England also, 
and have a King John the Second'? It was a foohsh, 
impracticable project, but it sorted well with the bold, 
reckless spirit of a man who had all his life long been 
a successful adventurer, and for whom there was some 
excuse if his head was turned by the marvellous things 
he had already done. 

Eut whatever thoughts were working silently, there 
was as yet no pubKc rupture. Elizabeth still sent 
ambassadors, and Don John received them, with mutual 
interchange of high compliment and professions of last- 
ing friendship. And Sidney, finding himself in the 
same town with the Prince, was glad enough to come, 
not as an Ambassador but as a private person, and 
kiss his hand. At first, we learn, Don John, in his 
Spanish haughtiness, spoke condescendingly to him as 
to a youth, his language being courteous, as. became 
one addressing a stranger, but no more. " Yet after a 
while," we are told, " that he had taken his just altitude, 
he found himself so stricken with this extraordinary 
planet that the beholders wondered to see what inge- 
nious tribute that brave and high-minded Prince paid 
to his worth, giving more honour and respect to this 
hopeful young gentleman than to the Ambassadors of 
mighty Princes.'^ "^ 

* Fulke Greville, p. 37. 



154 A MEMOIR OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. [Chap.v. 

Whatever the worth of this interview, Sidney appears 
not to have cared much for it. There was far greater 
pleasure for him in his visit to the Prince of Orange at 
Ghent or Bruges, or whatever town of Flanders he then 
dwelt in. William was now forty-four years old, and, 
although harassed by the petty jealousies of many both 
in and out of the Netherlands, was the recognised leader 
of the Protestant party. Nowhere is there a better 
portrait of him than that contained in three clumsy sen- 
tences, written by the same companion who has just 
told us about Don John. They refer to an interview 
had two years later than the occasion of Sidney's visit. 
" His uppermost garment," wrote Fulke Greville, " was 
a gown, yet such as, I dare confidently affirm, a mean 
born student in our Inns of Court would not have been 
well pleased to walk the streets in. Unbuttoned his 
doublet was, and of like precious matter and form to 
the other : his waistcoat, which showed itself under, not 
unlike the best sort of those woollen knit ones which 
our ordinary boatmen row us in : his company about 
him, the burgesses of that beer-brewing town ; * and he, 
so fellow-like encompassed with them, as, had I not 
known his face, no exterior sign of degree or deserved- 
ness could have discovered the inequality of his work or 
estate from that multitude. Notwithstanding, I no 
sooner came to his presence, but it pleased him to take 
knowledge of me ; and even upon that, as if it had been 
a signal to make a change, his respect of a stranger 
instantly begat respect to himself in all about him ; an 



* Delft, where William then was. 



itk ] THE PEINCE AKD PEINCESS OP ORANGE. 155 

outward passage of inward greatness which, in a popular 
estate, I thought worth the observing, because there 
is no pedigree but worth could possibly make a man 
prince and no prince in a moment, at his own plea- 
sure." * 

William's blunt, manly disposition was altogether to 
Sidney's liking. He promptly formed for him a strong 
attachment, which we know to have been heartily 
reciprocated. Very different from the Prince, but per- 
haps quite as attractive to the Ambassador, was the 
young Princess of Orange, described as a woman of 
beauty, intelligence and virtue. She was the Princess 
Charlotte of Bourbon, daughter of the Duke of Mont- 
pensier, well known as a fierce hater of Huguenots. 
Forced to live as nun and afterwards abbess of the 
convent of Jouarrs, the circumstances of her life only 
quickened her former affection for Protestant principles. 
The conclusive argument against Romanism came in 
the Saint Bartholomew massacre. In the autumn of 
1572 she fled to Heidelberg. There, altogether cast 
off by her father, and under the protection of the 
Elector Frederic, she spent three years. There Prince 
William met and learnt to love her. On the 12th of 
June, 1575, having obtained proper divorce from the 
poor, mad woman who had been his first wife, and who 
was now lodged in a suitable asylum, he took her in 
marriage. All the Protestant Princes of Germany, and 
none more fiercely than John of Nassau, WiUiam's 
brother, protested against this union as unholy and im- 

* Fiilke GreviUe, pp. 23—25. 



1^6 



A MEMOIR OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. [Chap. v. 



politic. William, without wasting any words, quickly 
asserted that this was a matter on which he chose to 
judge for himself, and to be guided by his own con- 
science. In the end, every one acknowledged the 
wisdom of his conduct and became endeared to the 
noble-minded woman whom he had made his wife.'"' 

It was their first-born child concerning whom Sidney 
went to offer congratulatory messages to the parents, 
and at whose christening, as it seems, he was god- 
father, f We have no details of the visit, save the state- 
ment that the Princess of Orange, in token of her esteem 
for him, presented him with a fair jewel. J His stay 
must have been short, for he reached Flanders at the 
end of May, and he was in London again by the 8th or 
9th of June. He and all his suite returned in perfect 
health, except Fulke Greville, who had violent sea-sick- 
ness on the way home, and had consequently to lie by 
at Rochester. § 

Sidney had been absent altogether about three months 
and a half. On the 9th of June, Mr. Secretary Wal- 
singham, writing from the Court of Greenwich to the 
Lord Deputy, thus ended his letter : — " I am to impart 
unto you the return of the young gentleman, Mr. Sidney 
and your son, whose message, very sufficiently per- 
formed, and the relating thereof, is no less gratefully 
received and well liked of her Majesty, than the honour- 
able opinion he hath left behind, with all the Princes 

■^ Motley, The Rise of the Dutch Bepuhlic, vol. iii. pp. 21, 22, etc. 
t Sidney Pajpers, vol. i. p. 192. 
X Ibid., p. 193. 
§ Ibid., p. 193. 



m22. ] GREAT COMMEITDATIONS AND GREAT HOPES. 157 

with whom he had to negociate, hath left a most sweet 
savour and grateful remembrance of his name in those 
parts. The gentleman hath given no small arguments 
of great hope, the fruits whereof I doubt not but your 
Lordship shall reap, as the benefit of the good parts that 
are in him, and whereof he hath given some taste in 
this voyage, is to redound to more than your Lordship 
and himself. There hath not been any gentleman, I 
am sure, these many years ,that hath gone through so 
honourable a charge with as great commendations as he : 
in consideration whereof, I could not but communicate 
this part of my joy with your Lordship, being no less a 
refreshing unto me in these my troublesome businesses 
than the soil is to the chafed stag. And so, wishing the 
increase of his good parts to your Lordship's comfort and 
the service of her Majesty and his country, I humbly 
take my leave." ^'' 

* Sidney Papers, vol. i. p. 193. 



CHAPTER VI. 

HOME JOYS AND HOME TROUBLES. 

1577. 

With his return from Germany began a new stage in 
Sidney's life. Before quitting England, he had mixed 
much with the Court, had taken high place in the esti- 
mation of Queen Elizabeth, had gained the admira- 
tion of many and the friendship of a few. But at that 
time he was very young, and there was a drawback to 
his courtly success in the intimacy existing between him 
and the disgraced Earl of Essex. Now, however, he was 
at once admitted into the inner circle of royal favour. 
On the mission which he had just completed, experienced 
diplomatists agreed that he had acted very wisely. To 
his natural refinement and sound education, had been 
added a wide acquaintance with the great men and the 
diverse institutions of foreign nations. Moreover he had 
come back to find himself placed, by a new family tie, 
in closer relation to the aristocracy of the land than he 
had hitherto been able to claim. Not only was Robert 
Dudley, Earl of Leicester, his uncle ; Henry Herbert, 
Earl of Pembroke, was now his brother-in-law. 

The Earl, who was a nephew of Queen Catherine 
Parr, had lived an upright, and on the whole a very 



it 22. ] THE Is^EW C0U:P[TESS OP PEMBEOKE. 159 

quiet life of about forty years. Not long a widower,''^ 
he was in 1577 attracted by the grace and comeliness 
of a damsel then about twenty years old, and his choice 
showed wisdom. If he must have a third wife, he 
could have found none else at all to be compared with 
Mary Sidney. Other ladies of the EHzabethan Court 
far excelled her in splendour, perhaps also in beauty ; 
but no one was a truer woman. And doubtless she, all 
things being considered, could hardly have met with a 
fitter husband. The Earl was old enough to be a pru- 
dent guardian to her, although not too old to be really 
loved. If he was not very clever or very profound, he 
was, at least, able to appreciate his wife's goodness and 
to honour her as she deserved to be honoured. 

On other grounds the match was a good one. The 
Earl of Leicester liked it, not for any sentimental reason, 
but because his niece was poor and her lover rich ; 
because it was part of his policy to ally himself and his 
kindred with as many great families as possible, and 
thereby to add to his own influence. Nine years ago 

* In 1553 he liad been pledged in marriage to Catlierine, daughter 
of the Earl of Suffolk, both husband and wife being mere children : 
but the imion had never been completed and, it being found that the 
lady had secretly espoused herself to the Earl of Hertford, a divorce 
had been procured. His next and first real wife was another 
Catherine, daughter of the Earl of Shrewsbury, and an especial 
favourite of the Queen's. Twice during her last illness, in 1575, 
Elizabeth went to watch by her bedside at Castle Baynard. " The 
last time," wrote Lady Anne Talbot, the sister of the dying Countess, 
" it was ten of the clock at night, or ever her Majesty went hence, 
being so great a mist as there were divers of the barges and boats that 
waited for her lost their ways and landed in wrong places, but, 
thanks be to God, her Majesty came well home, without cold or 
fears." — Nichols, Progresses of Eluabeth, vol. i. p. 416, 



160 A MEMOIR OP SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. [Chap.vi. 

he had planned zealously for the marriage of his nephew, 
Philip, with Sir William Cccirs daughter ; now he was 
eager to unite Mary with the lord of Wilton. Sir 
Henry Sidney also approved of the scheme. To his 
brother-in-law he wrote : 

"I find to my exceeding great comfort, tiie likelihood of a marriage 
between my Lord of Pembroke and my daughter ; which great honour 
to me, my mean lineage and kin, I attribute to my match in your noble 
house ; for which I acknowledge myself bound to honour and serve 
the same to the uttermost of my power : yea, so joyfully have I at 
heart that my dear child hath so happy an advancement as this is, as, 
in troth, I would lie a year in close prison rather than it should break. 
But, alas ! my dearest lord, mine ability answereth not my hearty 
desire. I am poor : mine estate is not unknown to your lordship, 
which wanteth much to make me able to equal that which I know my 
Lord of Pembroke may have. Two thousand pounds, I confess, I 
have bequeathed her, which your lordship knoweth I might better 
spare her when I were dead than one thousand living ; and in troth, 
my lord, I have it not, but borrow it I must, and so I will. And if 
your lordship -will get me leave that I may feast my eyes with that 
joyful sight of their coupling, I will give her a cup worth five hundred 
pounds. Good my lord, bear with my poverty ; for if I had it, little 
would I regard any sum of money, but wiUingly would give it, pro- 
testing before the Almighty God that if He and all the powers on 
earth would give me my choice of a husband for her, I would choose 
the Earl of Pembroke. I write to my Lord of Pembroke, which 
herewith I send to your lordship ; and thus I end, in answering your 
most welcome and honourable letter, with my hearty prayer to 
Almighty God to perfect your lordship's good work, and requite you 
for the same ; for I am not able." * 

No leave was given to Sir Henry Sidney to be pre- 
sent at the wedding, but it took place on some day 
between the 4th of February, 1577, when the Lord 
Deputy wrote, as we have seen, and the end of May, 

* Sidney Paper s, vol. i. p. 88. 



Mt^22. ] A HOLIDAY AT WILTON. 161 

when Leicester went to tender his compHments to the 
new Countess of Pembroke.* 

Ere long he was followed by his nephew. Philip, 
having reached England about the 8th of June, spent 
the rest of that month and some part of July in attend- 
ance upon the Court, first at Greenwich and afterwards 
at Richmond and elsewhere. As soon as he could be 
spared, he seems to have hurried off, intending to visit 
his father in Ireland, f First, however, he went for a fe^ 
weeks to Wilton. J That holiday must have been in 
many ways a happy one. All life long there was 
notable love between Philip and Mary, but there was 
special ground for fond and cheerful talk in the great 
things which had happened to both brother and sister 
during the half year for which they had been sepa- 
rated. Phihp, from being thought an untried stripling, 
had suddenly taken his stand, in the world's judgment, 
as an ambassador and a statesman ; and Mary, whom 
he had left a modest maiden in her teens, was now a 
woman, and the wife of one of the highest and richest 
peers in England. 

But Philip's stay at Wilton was short. The business 
for which he had designed to go to Ireland, taking a 
fresh turn, suddenly called him back to Court. Over 
his father's concerns a cloud was gathering ; it had 
been gathering for some months, and now seemed 
ready to burst. On two accounts the Queen was 
angry with Sir Henry Sidney. He had pricked her in 

* Sidney Papers, vol. i. p. 182. 

t Ibid., p. 199. 

t Ibid., pp. 203, 209, 211. 



16-2 A MEMOIR OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. fC.TAP.vi. 

two sensitive parts of her character, avarice and 
vanity. 

As to tlie first point, it seems that the Irish expenses 
had been unusually heavy of late. Affairs were in a 
very critical condition. Between the constant tendency 
to rebellion, now especiall}'^ to be dreaded, and the im- 
minent risk of foreign invasion, the Lord Deputy found 
it extremely hard and perilous work so to fit matters 
as to maintain order and promote justice. He had to 
enrol a few hundred more men in the militia, to see 
that the forts were in good order, and to adopt other 
defensive measures. To us it is strange that he should 
have eJBTected so much at so little additional cost. But 
in Elizabeth's opinion it was fault enough to be spend- 
ing money at all. " That Henry Sidney," on one 
occasion she exclaimed petulantly, " doth always seek 
to put us to charge.'^ Yet on these points the argu- 
ments of the Earl of Leicester, — never so careful in his 
friendship, we are told, as now, — seconded by the 
acquiescence of the prudent Lord Treasurer Burghley, 
would perhaps have been successful if there had not 
been another and a greater cause of offence. 

This second grievance was of very old date. In 1567, 
when Sir Henry Sidney made his celebrated journey 
through the south-western part of Ireland, he had 
found its disorders growing worse at every step, and 
this chiefly because of the misgovernment countenanced 
by the Earl of Ormond, " in whom," he said, " there 
appeared manifestly to want both justice, judgment, 
and stoutness to execute." There was evidently no 
mahce in this condemnation, for during the same tour, 



^^22] SIR HENRY Sidney's troubles. 163 



the Lord Deputy, when called upon to settle a strife 
between the Earls of Ormond and Desmond, passed 
judgment in favour of the former. But though 
wilHng to deal kindly towards the Irish lord for the 
little good that was in him, Sir Henry was in most 
matters forced to condemn him severely on account 
of his arrogant bearing to the English and his cruel 
treatment of the natives. 

Such even-handed justice was not satisfactory to the 
Queen. Ormond was her kinsman, and he had long 
been in attendance at the English Court. He was a 
handsome and well-spoken man. Therefore he must 
be treated very favourably. He must not be called 
upon for such taxes as were claimed of the other Irish 
nobles. He must not undergo punishment for his evil 
deeds like that awarded to the rest. Those, in effect, 
were the directions transmitted to the Lord Deputy. 
He, not liking them, had long ago requested that he 
might have nothing to do with so dangerous a subject. 
" For however indifferently I shall deal," he wrote to 
Cecil as early as 1566, "I know it will be thought not 
favourable enough on my Lord of Ormondes side, and I 
assure you. Sir, if I served under the cruellest tyrant 
that ever tyrannized, and knew him affected on the one 
or the other side in a matter between party and party 
referred to my judgment, I would rather offend his 
affection and stand to his misericord, than offend mine 
own conscience or stand to God's judgment." In another 
letter to Cecil, written two years later, Sidney gave 
fresh proof of the man's profligate wickedness. " For 
the honour of good charity," he said, "for knight- 



M 2 



164 A MEMOIR Or-SIR PHILTP SIDNEY. FChap VI. 

hood's sake, be good to the widow and infant, and move 
the Queen either to charge Ormond or us to see it 
amended." 

In this way things went on for years. One of the 
reports by which it was sought to weaken the Lord 
Deputy's power, both with the Enghsh Court and with 
the Irish people, was to the effect that he and his 
brother-in-law, the Earl of Leicester, were plotting, the 
one to marry the Queen and become King of England, 
and the other to construct Ireland into a solid monarchy, 
he of course being monarch ! There were none in 
England to believe such a story ; whereas Ormond and 
his brother Sir Edmund Butler gave a notable illustra- 
tion of their evil mind in the rebellion of 1569, which, 
because connived at by the former and openly led by the 
latter, w^as known as the Butlers' War. But nothing- 
could persuade the Queen to abandon her unworthy 
favourite. She only scolded Sidney for not executing 
plans, which were very unworthy of her queenly posi- 
tion and very ruinous to the welfare of her Irish terri- 
tory. And now, in the year 1577, the scolding was at 
its height. The Lord Deputy, seeing fresh reason for 
being indignant with Ormond, had given fresh offence 
by his sturdy policy. In January he wrote to Walsing- 
ham to say that all show of friendship was now breaking 
between him and the Earl. Next month, in a letter to 
Leicester, he observed, " I crave nothing at his hand 
but that which he oweth to the Queen, and that which 
her great liberality, beside natural duty, bindeth him to. 
And if he will have of me that I owe him not, as he 
hath had, he cannot win it by crossing me, as I hear 



^1:>J Sm HENRY SIDNEY'S TROUBLES. 165 

he doth in the Court, and I have cause to deem he doth 
in this country." - 

The Queen was ready enough to give ear to her 
favourite's complaints. On the 9th of August, while 
Philip was at Wilton, she caused a very severe letter to 
be written to his father, condemning him for laying 
upon Ormond the imposts from which she had ordered 
that he should be exempted, and commanding that a 
prompt apology should be made both for this offence 
and for the extravagance now being shown in Ireland. 

Sir Henry Sidney defended himself in a very noble 
letter, written on the 15th of September. He showed 
that, if the- country was to be governed at all, it could 
not possibly be done at less cost. He said boldly that, 
if great men like Ormond were not taxed, he could not 
and would not levy money from the poor. " For in 
equity that cannot be imposed upon them which his 
lands should bear ; for therein were oppression and no 
equality in distribution, so that your Majesty onlj is to 
bear the loss." How then was he to act '? How could 
power be at all maintained in Ireland if he was neither 
to draw taxes from the wealthy natives nor to claim 
money from the English Exchequer '? It must come 
from some source ; whence could it come 1 The Lord 
Deputy was justly angry with his Sovereign, and he did 
not scruple to send her retort in stronger language, 
and with infinitely stronger arguments, than she had 
used to him. He told her plainly that, on the one hand, 
the effect of her conduct was to make the people more 
wilful and obstinate than they otherwise would be : 
" And, on the other side, the slender backing of me in 



166 A MEMOIR OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. [Chap. vi. 

your services discourageth me altogether either to 
attempt or do anything with comfort or conceit of good 
Hking. For bruits fly hither that I shall be revoked 
and that your Majesty hath conceived a displeasure 
against me, — and you know what service is to be ex- 
pected, and how the people will be inclined, when they 
shall suspect that I am in disgrace with you. And, 
Madam, these bruits do no good. If they be true, if it 
be determined I shall be revoked, I humbly beseech 
your Majesty I may know your gracious pleasure : if it 
be not so, it were good in the respect of the advance- 
ment of your service that these bruits be suppressed. 
But when I look into the services that I have done, the 
care and travail that I have taken, and the sound con- 
science I bear that I have served you faithfully, truly, 
and profitably, I cannot but lament, with sorrow of 
heart and grief of mind, to receive such sharp and 
bitter letters from your Majesty, which so much have 
perplexed me, both body and mind, since I received 
them." ^' 

This was the state of the case then when Philip 
Sidney hurried up from his pleasant holiday at Wilton 
to be present with the Court. In August he had sent 
forward Waterhouse, Sir Henry's experienced agent, 
saying that, considering what daily alterations were 
wont to take place in the sentiments and policy of the 
Crown, he could advise him nothing, and bidding him 

* My information respecting this Irish episode is drawn from 
various letters written hj, to, and about Sir Henry Sidney, and to be 
found partly as MSS. in the State Paper Office, and partly in print 
among the Sidney Papers, 



1577. 

ML 22 



] " SIR HENEY's CHAMPIO:^TS AT COURT. 167 



do whatever seemed most wise and accordant with the 
circumstances of the hour. * 

Waterhouse behaved very discreetly. On one occasi on 
when urging his master's claims to the Queen, he was 
interrupted by the Earl of Thorn ond, another Irish 
nobleman, one of like mind with Ormond, who said that, 
whereas the Lord Deputy was spending so much money 
about the protection of Ireland, he would engage to put 
the country in a better state of defence, and in a way 
which, instead of costing anything, would bring in a httle 
revenue to the crown. This was a remark of the sort 
most likely to delight the Queen ; but Waterhouse 
checked the mischief which it miglit have done, by 
quietly asking to have the scheme explained in detail. 
The Earl said he would gladly do so, yet, as the details 
were very complicated, he must take a day or two to 
work them into a shape fit to set before her Majesty. 
Of course they were never presented. f 

But though the agent did his best, Philip was not 
satisfied to leave the matter solely in his hands. He 
therefore, early in September, presented himself at the 
Court then assembled at Oatlands.J He was received 
very graciously ; and, for all the tokens of kind feeling- 
shown towards him by his own and his father's friends 
at this difficult crisis, he made courteous return. 
Others who were not friends offered him respect, or the 
pretence for it. Among the latter, the Earl of Ormond 
one day essayed to talk with him. We can fancy the 

* Sidney Papers^ vol. i., pp. 209, 210. 
t Ibid., p. 211. 
X Ibid., p. 225. 



IGS A MEMOIR OF SIR nilLIP SIDNEY. [Chap. yi. 

patronizing look and the big words which the petted 
Irishman, the traduccr of Sir Henry Sidney, would 
flourish. Philip, we are told, eyed him haughtily and 
made no answer. It was a bold thing to do in the 
royal presence, and to the reigning favourite of the 
hour. The spectators thought that bloodshed would 
surely follow. But the Earl, too prudent to take 
offence, said in a pompous way that he would accept 
no quarrels from a virtuous young gentleman, who was 
bound by nature to defend his father's cause ; and 
Philip on the other hand, said Waterhouse, in a letter, 
went as far and showed as much magnanimity as was 
convenient.* So the affair ended. 

Philip indeed had no time for any private quarrel. 
He made it his one business to justify his father. He 
saw how and why the Queen was offended, he knew 
that there was no good cause of offence, and he set 
himself to the work of putting matters in their true 
lio'ht. To this end, not content with mere talking: and 
vague apologies, he prepared a written defence, in which 
he carefully gathered up all the complaints that were 
floating about concerning the Lord Deputy's govern- 
ment, and then disposed of them one by one. 
» Unfortunately this document in its complete and 
presentable shape is lost. The only relic we have is a 
portion of what was evidently Philip's first rough draft. 
From one point of view nothing could be more interest- 
ing than this fragment, covering four closely written 
folio pages, with its many erasures and alterations, its 



Papers, vol. i., p. 22'] 



^t"'22. ] Philip's defence of his fathek. 169 

careless slips of grammar, its jottings down in the mar- 
gin of further arguments ; all helping our imagination 
to draw a vivid picture of the young man, sitting in 
some private corner — at Hampton Court, perhaps, or 
Baynard's Castle — and expressing the strong thoughts 
which stirred him alike as a son and as an Englishman. 
But we should have better understood its actual merit 
if we could have seen, in its finished state, what Water- 
house declared to he the most excellent discourse he 
had ever read in his life.* 

Yet much may be gathered from the fragment. The 
whole writing was divided into seven articles. The first 
three, which are lost, probably dealt with the matters 
of greatest personal import : the extant four have to do 
with more general concerns. The foremost of them 
refers to the Lord Deputy's policy towards the nobles 
who claimed the privilege of exemption from taxes. 
" And privileged persons, forsooth, be all the rich men 
of the pale, the burden only lying upon the poor, who 
may groan, for their cry cannot be heard. And, Lord ! 
to see how shamefully they will speak for their country 
that be indeed tlie tyrannous oppressors of their coun- 
try." The protestations of such men were void as much 
of justice as of humanity. For this, explained Sidney, 
was the true state of the case. The cess, or property 
tax, which originally and rightly had been laid ahke 
upon all the ploughlands of the country, had gradually 
come to be restricted to only a small portion. Each 
Deputy had granted exemption to certain favourite 

* Sidney Papers, vol. i., p. 228. 



170 A MEMOIR OF SIR nilLlP SIDNEY. [Chap. vi. 

nobles, on account of their real or pretended good ser- 
vice. If the privilege had been merely a kindness to 
the great men in question, it might well have been tole- 
rated : but it was not so, it was a heavy wrong done to 
the rest upon whom fell the whole burden of the taxa- 
tion, and now it had reached such an extremity of in- 
justice and inconvenience that the Lord Deputy was 
bound to make a reform, and to claim from all their 
respective contributions to the exchequer. Let learned 
men decide whether any obsolete grant, or any reward 
for notable services done in former generations, was 
licence for passing by all the rich men and forcing the 
^oor remnant to bear the whole expense of the govern- 
ment ; this poor remnant, be it remembered, being 
already weighed down by a cess far more grievous than 
her Majesty's, privately exacted by the very noblemen 
who had the impudence to claim entire exemption for 
themselves, 

Sidney next referred to the private complaints of the 
various Irish peers, who were repeatedly inventing 
accusations of personal injustice shown to them by the 
Deputy. There was not one, he said, which, when 
brought into Court, had not been publicly disproved. 
Surely the Queen ought not to tolerate this sort of pro- 
cedure, for its effect was to bring discredit not so much 
upon the governor as upon the government. " Neither 
is this way sought for any other end but that, by the 
disgrace of the Deputy, the people may be moved to 
cast off all reverence, the only bond of duty.'' Let their 
policy be seen in its true light, let the false colour of 
pubhc duty be washed off from their backbi tings, and no 



1577 



;^^2. ] Philip's defence of his father. 171 



one could be deceived. If, however, they would bring 
forth any complaint worth the pains, Philip would under- 
take to answer it. 

Another complaint against the Lord Deputy was that 
he had offered to the nobles the payment of a steady 
yearly rent of five marks, in lieu of the variable cess 
which they averaged at ten, pounds. Certainly, urged 
Sidney, it was strange, if the cess were really as grievous 
as they professed, that they should grumble at so very 
favourable an alternative. Was it that they thought 
the rent would be perpetual, whereas the cess was only 
casual 1 " Truly, either it must be said that they hope 
to see the Queen s authority out of the country, or else ^ 
the one is of as much continuance as the other, since the 
garrison must have cess, and, as well as the Queen's 
Majesty may remit the cess at any time, so well by the 
like reason may it please her to remit the same rent. 
So that the continuance is one : the difference is between 
ten pounds now and five marks then. 

" And this I speak as an Irish advocate : but now like 
a true English subject, and do esteem that to be most 
truly just which most truly serves the republic. Re- 
membering first that they are in no case to be^ualled 
to this realm, and then that they have no cause -at all 
herein to complain, I must ever have in mind this con- 
sideration ; that there is no cause, neither in reason nor 
in equity, why her most excellent Majesty should be at 
such excessive expenses to keep a realm of which scarcely 
he hath the acknowledgment of sovereignty ; which 
cannot possibly be helped but by one of these three 
means ; either by direct conquest to make the country 



172 A MEMOIR OF SIU riTILIP SIDNEY. [Chap vr. 

hers, and so by one great heap of charges to purchase 
that which afterwards would well countervail the princi- 
pal ; or else by diminishing that she doth send thither; 
or, lastly, with force and gentleness, to take at least as 
much rents as may serve to quit the same charges. The 
first is always excepted, and is in her Majesty's hands 
to do when it shall please her. The second, whatsoever 
may be imagined, will in fine be found both dangerous 
at the first sight and impossible to continue. The last 
resteth ; to which there cannot be a more gentle way 
than this, which bears with it an apparent ease of their 
great grievances. So that it comes to this point, that 
her Majesty hath to choose, whether she will use such 
bounty to them as for their security only to continue 
her charge, or else to desire them, if they be so good 
subjects as they say, in this reasonable way of her ser- 
vice to give example to the rest of the Irishry of due 
subjection. And, indeed, this stretcheth to a farther 
benefit. For, after the rent were once settled, the 
soldiers should no longer live upon the English pale ; 
so should that rent come clearly to the Queen, 
and they be in garrison upon the wild, and by such 
force bring them to pay the rents, as they have most 
of them already agreed unto. But this needs longer 
discourse and more perfect knowledge than I confess 
I have. Now, only, I hope it shall sufiice that a servant 
deserves not blame for opening a way to save his prince's 
treasure.^' 

Very skilful surely is the way in which Sidney quietly 
worked his argument to show how his father s policy, 
instead of being extravagant, was really the most econo- 



1577. 
yEt. 2; 



2. ] Philip's defence of his father. 173 



mical possible both for Queen Elizabeth and for the Irish 
people. The last point of his reasoning touched 
the complaint that Ireland, being farmed to the Lord 
Deputy, was cruelly tortured by him. The statement 
that Ireland was farmed was manifestly untrue, for eyery 
one could see that no former Deputy had ever been so 
stinted in revenue or so tied in his government, neither 
his counsel being followed nor himself being counte- 
nanced. Nor was the charge of cruelty valid. Sir 
Henry Sidney had shown not a whit more severity than 
was needful. It would have been wrong and foolish for 
him to have been over lenient. " Truly the general 
nature of all countries not fully conquered is against it. 
For until by time they find the sweetness of due subjec- 
tion, it is impossible that any gentle means should put 
out the fresh remembrances of their lost liberty. And 
that the Irishman is that way as obstinate as any nation, 
with whom no other passion can prevail but fear — besides 
their history which plainly points it out — their manner 
of life wherein they choose rather all filthiness than any 
law, and their own consciences who best know their own 
natures, give sufficient proof of For under the sun. 
there is not a nation that live more tyrannously than 
they do one over the other ; and, truly, even in her 
Majesty*s time, the rebellions of O'Neil and all the 
Earl of Ormond's brethren, show well how little force 
any grateful love doth bear with them.'' " Little is 
lenity to prevail in minds so possessed with a natural 
inconstancy ever to go to a new fortune, with a revenge- 
ful hate to all English as to their only conquerors, and, 
that which is most of all, with so ignorant obstinacy in 



174 A MEMOIR OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. [Chap. vi. 

Papistry that they do in their souls detest the present 
government. 

" To condude, whatsoever it shall please them that 
have both knowledge and power to determine, let 
gracious considerance be had of an honest servant, full 
of zeal in his prince's service, and not without well- 
grounded hopes of good success.'' " The Emperor 
Julian, to a busy accuser that told him, ' if he behoved 
no accuser, no man should be condemned,' made 
answer, ' if he beheved all accusers, no man should be 
cleared.' " '''' 

Of this sort was Sidney's defence of his father. Every 
one, we are told, was struck by its eloquence and truth- 
fulness ; most of the men about the Court regarded it 
as a decisive answer to the various charges, and as 
completely setthng the question. More than all, the 
Lord Treasurer Burghley, just come back from his sum- 
mer holiday, expressed hearty approval of the Lord 
Deputy's conduct and entire sympathy with him. Eliza- 
beth could no longer persist in her opposition. Her heart 
was not much influenced ; but her judgment was forced 
to give way. She expressed herself satisfied with Philip's 
refutation of the charges against his father. Moreover, 
in a day or two later there arrived Sir Henry's own 
letter, to which I have already referred, and other ex- 
planatory documents, which quite confirmed PhiKp's 
statement. "But," added Waterhouse, "let no man 
compare with Mr. Philip's pen. I know he will send it 
your lordship, and when you read it you shall have more 

* Britisli Museum, Cotton. MSS., 'Titns B, sii. fols. 557—559. 



1577. 

J3t. 25 



] A VICTOEY OVEE THE QUEEN. 175 



cause to pray God for him than to impute affection to 
me in this opinion of him." ^ 

I have dwelt long upon this point in Sidney's history, 
but not longer than it deserves. He had achieved a 
real success, and of it he had reason to be very proud. 
It was something for him to have spoken boldly in 
foreign Courts on distasteful matters, and to have won 
the applause of statesmen and even princes ; but here 
was a far greater undertaking. On the continent he 
had moved as the agent of the Queen of England, and 
his arguments w^ere only half his own ; but now, at Oat- 
lands, and at Windsor, for the Court had removed to 
Windsor during these weeks, he stood quite on his own 
ground. With nothing to support him but the justice 
of his cause and his own natural ability, he had his 
sovereign for antagonist. It was a great thing to come 
victoriously out of such a battle and to retain all the 
esteem of the mistress whom he had conquered. 

Indeed throughout this excitement Sidney continued 
to hold high place in the royal favour, f There was 
even some talk of his being sent on public business to 
Flanders, where every day the Protestant struggle was 
gaining fresh importance and larger interest. Thither 
he urged Languet to go. " You will there have," he 
said in a letter which he wrote from the Queen's palace 
on the 1st of October, "a splendid field for putting into 
practice, in the formation of this new commonwealth, 
those principles which you have so diligently studied 



* Sidney Papers, p. 228. 
t Ibid., p. 228. 



176 A MEMOIR OF SIR* PHILIP SIDNEY. [C.iap. VI 

during the whole course of your Hfe." * Amidst all liis 
home employment he was very anxiously watching the 
progress of affairs on the continent. 

But then he seems to have watched everything with 
interest. During this momentous month of September 
he found leisure to enter warmly into a question that 
was then much in people's minds. The North- West 
Passage to India had lately grown into a very exciting 
to^Dic. In 1496, John Cabot had quitted Bristol, under 
the auspices of King Henry the Seventh, upon a voyage 
which resulted in the first modern finding of the con- 
tinent of America, Columbus having gone no further 
than the West Indies. John died in the year of success, 
but his son Sebastian carried on the plan of discovery. 
From him started the idea of seeking a North Sea route 
to the far east, and his efforts aroused a long and per- 
severing search, in which England, France, Spain, and 
Portugal vied with one another, although England alone 
steadily persevered in the undertaking. A shadow had 
been thrown over the subject by the ill-fate of Wil- 
loughby, who, in 1553, essaying a north-eastern passage, 
had, after some months of prosperous sailing, perished 
miserably together with a crew of seventy men. But 
hope soon revived. In June 1576, Martin Frobisher, 
specially patronized by Sidney's uncle, the Earl of War- 
wick, started from BlackwaU and was four months 
absent. In May, 1577, he commenced a second voyage 
which was terminated on the 28th of September. 
Philip shared all the popular excitement on the matter, 

* Zurich Letters (ed. by Dr. Robinson for the Parker Society, 18 i 2, 
1845), Series I. p. 178. 



i5rr. 

iEt 



^22.] frobisher's gold. 177 



and what he said of it in a letter to Languet, written 
two days later, is worth noting : 

" I wrote to you a year ago, about a certain Frobisher, who, in rivalry 
of Magellan, has explored the sea which, as he thinks, washes the 
north part of America. It is a marvellous history. After having 
made slow progress in the past year, he touched at a certain 
island in order to rest both himself and his crew. And there by 
chance a young man, one of the ship's company, picked up a piece of 
earth which he saw glittering on the ground, and showed it to Fro- 
bisher ; but he, being busy with other matters, and not believing 
that precious metals were produced in a region so far to the north, 
considered it of no value. Well, they sailed homewards at the begin- 
ning of winter ; and the young man kept the earth by him as a 
memorial of his labour (for he had no thought of anything else), till 
his return to London. And there, when one of his friends saw it 
shining in an extraordinary manner, he tested it, and found that it 
was the purest gold, unalloyed with any other metal. Therefore 
Frobisher went back to the place this last spring, under orders to ex- 
plore the island, and should it answer his expectation, to proceed no 
farther. This he did and he has now returned, bringing his ships- —of 
which he had only three, and those of small size — ^fuUy laden, and he is 
said (for they have not yet unloaded) to have brought two hundred tons 
of ore. He says decidedly that the island is so productive in metals as 
far to surpass Peru, at least as it now is. There are also six other islands, 
near to this, which seem very little inferior. It is therefore at this time 
under debate, by what means these hitherto successful labours can be 
still carried on in safety against the attacks of other nations, especially 
of the Spaniards and Danes : the former as claiming all the western parts 
by right from the Pope ; the latter as being more northerly and there- 
fore nearer and better able by reason of their possessions in Iceland, and 
of their skill in that sort of navigation, to carry on the undertaking. 
So, pray, for the sake of our love for one another, send me your opinion 
on this subject, and at the same time describe the most convenient 
method of working these ores ; for we know as little about this art as 
about the cultivation of vines. Remember, therefore, so to write as 
that you may answer to the great reputation in which you are held 
here ; for unless you forbid it, I will show your letter to the Queen. 
The thing is really very important, and it may probably, at some 
time or other, be of use to the professors of the true religion. " * 

* Zurich Letters, Series II. pp. 178 — 180. 



178 A MEMOIR OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. [Cuap. vi. 

Languet's very characteristic reply was written on 
the 28th of November. As the letter was to be read 
by Queen EUzabeth, he took the opportunity of preach- 
ing her a very sound, and not uncalled-for, sermon. Here 
is the English of a small part of it : 

" If what you say about Frobisher be true, lie seems likely to out- 
glitter not only Magellan but even Christopher Columbus himself. 
Who could ever have thought that the extreme north would supply us 
with such a great incitement to evil ? You may well despise the 
projected voyage to the Indies, since you have stumbled on that gift 
of nature, which is of all the most fatal and baneful to mankind, 
yet which most men so madly covet, that it stirs them, more 
than anything else in the world, to incur every sort of risk. I fear 
that England, quickened by the love of gold, will now just empty 
itself into those islands which Frobisher has been finding. And how 
much English blood, do you think, must be shed for you to keep hold 
of them ? There is not ''one of our maritime nations that will not 
compete with you for them. In old times when some Carthaginians 
on a voyage in the Atlantic had been carried by a storm to land of 
some sort, and had come back with wonderful stories about its fruit- 
fulness and healthiness, the senate, fearing that the people would be 
tempted to go thither, put to death the men who had brought the 
report, so that if any wished to emigrate they should have none who 
could guide them. Do I therefore think that you should reject these 
good things which God has thrown in your way ? Anything but that. 
JS'ay, I thoroughly admire the high spirit, the perseverance, and even 
the good fortune of Frobisher ; and, I think, he deserves great rewards. 
I have no doubt the first movers of the long and dangerous voyage 
he undertook had an eye to the riches which the Spaniards and 
Portuguese have procured by their great expeditions ; and, since he 
has reached his mark, who can be so ungenerous as not to hold him 
worthy of the highest praise ? But I am thinking of you, for you seem to 
rejoice in the circumstance as if it was the best thing possible for your 
country, especially as I noticed in you last spring a certain longing 
to undertake this kind of enterprize. And if Frobisher's foolish hope 
about finding a North- West Passage had power then to tempt your 
mind so greatly, what will not these golden mountains do, or rather 
these islands aU of gold, as I daresay they shape themselves day and 
night in your mind ? Beware, I do beseech you, and never let the 



AT-k] A SERMON OX GOLD-SEEKING. 179 

cursed hunger after gold, whereof the poet speaks, creep over that 
spirit of yours, into which nothing has ever hitherto been admitted 
save the love of goodness and the desire of earning the good will of 
all men. You are quite mistaken if you think that men naturally 
grow better as they grow older. It is very rarely so. It is true 
they become more cautious and learn to hide their vices and evil 
likings : but if you know an old man in whom you see any honesty, 
be sure he was a good man in his youth. Therefore, whenever any 
untried feeling affects you, be slow to indulge it, even if the object to 
which it leads you seem to be a good one : before you admit it, think 
carefully what it is that tempts you, for if you too hastil^ set out on 
any course, you may find yourself going wrong, and then you will 
have to turn round, or (which is more common and far worse) you will 
through false shame refuse to confess yourself mistaken, and so go on 
as you started. But what is the object of all this ? you will say. 
That if these golden islands are fixing themselves too firmly in your 
thoughts, you may turn them out before they overcome you, and 
may keep yourself safe till you can serve your friends and your 
country in a better way. If a desire of fame and glory makes your 
present inactivity irksome to you, set before your eyes the example of 
the old Chandoses and Talbots. By imitating them you will win far 
greater honour and renown than if you could gain all the wealth 
which the Spaniards have brought over from the 'Nevf "World, and on 
the strength of which they have insulted all the nations of Europe, 
and so disgusted them with their insolence, that they now feel, and 
perhaps soon will feel much more, that they have made a great 
mistake.""^ 

LaHguet's advice was very good, but, as it happened, 
almost superfluous. Sidney, in his next letter to his 
friend, had to tell him that Frobisher's ore, on being 
melted, had been found to be all dross.f The English 
could not at once give up their hopes about the fancied 
treasure, and Frobisher sailed again next spring partly 
with the view of settling the question, but the event 
proved that the treasure, which had been brought 

* Langueti Epistolce, pp. 176 — 178. 
t Zurich Letters, Series II. p. 182. 

N 2 



180 A MEMOIR OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. [Chap. vi. 

home at great expense, was of less value than common 
stone. 

Had it been otherwise, it is not at all likely that 
Sidney, though he may now and then have been 
tempted, would have really sailed with Frobisher. He 
had many reasons for staying at home. Both his 
sovereign and his father required his presence in Eng- 
land ; and he himself, we may imagine, irrespective of 
any claims which others might have upon him, would 
at this time prefer attending the Court, where every 
one honoured him, and having loving intercourse with 
his kindred who were now seeing the first public proof 
of his real worth, to any cheerless voyage to the Polar 
Regions. 

But of his occupation throughout these winter months 
we have very scanty knowledge. He was in frequent, 
if not constant, attendance at Court. He spent much 
time in the society of his mother, who was probably also 
waiting upon the Queen, and in residence at her house in 
Paul's Wharf. Besides sharing the gaieties at the palace, 
he often enjoyed in quiet the company of such chosen 
friends as Fulke Greville, Edward Dyer, and, when he 
was in England, Edward Waterhouse. He was in occa- 
sional communication with many correspondents besides 
Hubert Languet. Such men as the Prince of Orange 
and Prince John Casimir were glad to write to him and 
to read his letters concerning foreign politics. His 
hearty interest in these things also brought him into 
connection with all the great men of the continent who 
chanced to be visiting England. In June or July he 
had become acquainted with Philip du Plessis Mornay, 



1577 
Mt. 



,23. j HOME EMPLOYMENTS. 181 



at that time seeking aid from Elizabeth on behalf of 
Henry of Navarre and the Protestant cause.'" Morn ay, 
like Sidney, had been hiding in Paris during the Saint 
Bartholomew massacre, and with Sidney he shared the 
especial love of Languet. He was one of the noblest of 
the many noble men whom the Huguenots could claim. 
All praised him for his gracious manners, his sound 
learning, his great wisdom, and his thorough goodness 
of heart. "I am delighted to hear that you have 
become intimate with Du Plessis,'' wrote Languet; "you 
cannot possibly have such another friend. "f Henry, 
Baron of Lichtenstein, and a kinsman, it would seem, of 
Sidney's old friend the Count of Hannau, was also visit- 
ing London. Sidney showed him all the courtesy he 
could, but sent to apologize for any omissions, on the 
ground of his being so much employed in his father's 
business. " He is certainly an excellent young man,'^ 
he said, " and one whom I love from my heart ; and 
whenever any of his friends shall come hitber, I will 
endeavour to atone for my fault." | In ways Kke these 
Sidney's time was well employed till the year closed. 

* Memoir es et Correspondanu de Buplessis Mcrnay (1824), tome i. 
p. 117. 

t Langueti EpistolcE, pp. 167, 172. 
X Zurich Letters, Series II. p. 180. 



CHAPTER VII. 

UNDER THE ROYAL SMILE. 

1578, 1579. 

Queen Elizabeth probably kept Christmas, as was 
her custom, at Hampton Court. Ever anxious to gather 
round her the wit and beauty of her realm, she made 
this a season of great festivity. During the summer she 
commonl}^ travelled through portions of the kingdom, and 
was a guest of the most favoured among her courtiers ; 
but at Christmas she was hostess, and welcomed all to 
share the daintiest entertainments that could be offered 
to eye and ear and palate. It was a pleasant and a 
thoroughly English custom. 

Then on New Year s Day there was a general making 
of presents. Many tokens of friendship passed between 
the Queen's guests ; and all joined in display of loyalt}^ 
to herself. So it was every year ; but there seems to 
have been an unusual heaping up of gifts on this 1st of 
January, 1578, when Sidney was at Court. Sidney's 
uncle, the Earl of Leicester, was prominent in the courtly 
business. He tendered to his Sovereign a splendid 
ornament of wrought gold, loaded with diamonds, 
rubies and opals. Then followed scores of other gifts ; 
some of them very curious and very characteristic of the 
givers. The pompous Earl of Ormond brought a golden 



eI^s.] new YEAE's gifts. 183 



^t 



phoenix, -whose wings and feet gHttered with rubies 
and diamonds, and which rested on a branch covered 
with other precious stones. Sir Christopher Hatton 
tendered a cross of diamonds, furnished with a suitable 
motto ; also a gold fancy, imaging a dog leading a man 
over a bridge, and garnished with many gems. Lord 
Cobham handed up a petticoat of yellow satin, laid all 
over with ornaments of silver and tawny silk, fringed 
with more silver and silk, and lined with tawny sarcenet, 
while his wife presented a white petticoat, similarly 
adorned. The Countess of Essex offered a dainty little 
parcel of ruffs. Still daintier was Lady Sidney's present 
of a pair of perfumed gloves, together with twenty-four 
small buttons of gold, each one having a tiny diamond 
set in its centre. Her daughter the Countess of Pem- 
broke brought a doublet of lawn, embroidered with gold 
and silver and silk of divers colours, and lined with 
yellow taffeta. In odd contrast was her son Philip's 
present of a cambric chemise, its sleeves and collar 
wrought with black w^ork and edged with a small bone- 
lace of gold and silver. With it was a pair of ruffs 
interlaced with gold and silver, and set with spangles 
which alone weighed four ounces. Sidney and his 
friend Fulke Greville must have taken counsel before- 
hand, for Greville also brought a cambric chemise, 
very similarly ornamented. His other great friend, 
Edward Dyer, with rather better taste, tendered a 
kirtle made of lawn and embroidered with flowers of 
gold. Meanwhile, the humbler followers of the Court 
were not backward in their show of loyalty. The chief 
laundress presented to Her Majesty three pocket-hand- 



184 A MEMOIK OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. [Chap. vii. 

kerchiefs and a tooth-cloth. Another attendant, I sup- 
pose a chambermaid, gave a hnen night-cap ; and some 
one else provided another night-cap made of cambric. 
One named Newton, who must have been head-gardener, 
sent up a silver-gilt porringer with a snail sticking to 
an oak-leaf for handle. The apothecaries, of whom 
there were two or three, made presents of green ginger, 
orange candy, and that kind of stuff. The cutler 
tendered a meat-knife with a white bone handle and 
a motto carved thereon. The dustman, not well able 
to typify his office, made clean choice of two bolts of 
cambric : but the sergeant of the pastry plied his trade 
in producing a great quince pie, wath gilt adorn- 
ments.'''" 

In return for all such presents — and I have onl}^ 
enumerated a few as specimens of the courtly gifts of the 
Ehzabethan day — the Queen made an almost unvary- 
ing return of gilt plate, showing her esteem by the 
quantity of the article. The Earl of Leicester, this New 
Year's Day, received a hundred ounces, while the Earl 
of Ormond was honoured with a hundred and sixty- 
one, and Sir Christopher Hatton, just now floating upon 
the very surface of queenly favour, was freighted with 
as much as four hundred ounces' weight of royal love. 
These courtiers and a few others were, of course, far 
above the average. It was no disrespect to Lady 
Sidney that she received a present weighing but thirty 
ounces and three quarters, or to the Countess of Pem- 
broke, that only two pounds' weight was given to her. 

* Nicliols, Progresses, vol. ii. pp. 64 — 80. 



1578. 
iEt.23 



J ACQUAINTANCES AT COURT. 185 



The Queen's affection for Sidney was good for two-and- 
twenty ounces ; while to Edward Dyer was set down a 
gift weighing sixteen ounces, and to Fulke Greville 
another weighing thirteen ounces. The inferior attend- 
ants received two or three or more ounces a-piece." 

Philip Sidney had to exchange New Year's greetings 
with some of the most memorable men and women in 
English history. At no other time surely has so much 
splendour been disj)layed in England as might be seen 
in the Ehzabethan Court. Besides the great Queen 
herself — great notwithstanding all the littlenesses which 
deface her character — and such famous men as Burghley 
and Leicester, there were a host of very notable cour- 
tiers with whom Sidney was intimate. 

Most showy, perhaps, of all was Sir Christopher 
Hatton, now in his thirty-eighth year, and a month old 
in knighthood. Ten years earlier he had joined in 
writing a play, Tancred and Gismund, which he had 
also helped to perform before Ehzabeth, and from that 
time he steadily rose in the royal favour. Once, 
indeed, he had had a tiff with Her Majesty, but he soon 
won back her smile by writing a most humble letter, to 
show how entirely he loved the presence and service to 
which he had eternally consecrate-^ his whole life, 
liberty, and fortune, and signing himself her " despair- 
ing, most wretched bondman." f The Queen, either for 
some special charm, or in mere joke, called him her Lids 
or Eye-hds. When he was sent to Antwerp he wrote, 

* Nichols, Progresses, vol. ii. pp. 81 — 90. 

t State Paper Office MSS. Domestic Series, Blimheth, vol. Ixxsix. 
No. 47. 



18G A MEMOIR OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. [Cbap. vil. 

on the road, to thank her for the gracious letters with 
which she had comforted him during the great grief of 
two days' absence from her, and to assure her that all 
his faults would be washed away by the tears that fell 
from "her poor Lids." * In the next letter he tendered 
fresh vows of devotion, lamented that twelve whole^ 
days had passed since he had seen that sun whose 
brightness alone gave light to his soul, and implored her 
never, never to forget her Lids, so often watered for her 
sake.f Two months later, still in Antwerp, he wrote 
to say how the last letter from her had warmed his 
heart's blood with joys above joys, thanked her for her 
continued favour, and on the knees of his heart com- 
mended his faithful love to her. if What wonder that 
the mistress who loved flattery more even than money, 
should this year have rewarded her worshipper with 
four hundred ounces of plate, — or that at another time, 
when Bishop Cox of Ely protested against Hatton 
Garden being built upon the ground lawfully belonging 
to El}^ Place in Holborn, she should have written thus 
to the poor Bishop, " Proud Prelate, you know what 
you were before I made you what you are ; if you do 
not immediately comply with my request, by God, I 
will unfrock you I '' 

Hatton may stand as representative of a school of 
courtiers, made as fulsome and low-thoughted as they 
were by the temperament of their Sovereign. But 
Hatton was a good, well-meaning man at heart, widely 

^ State Paper Office MSS. Domestic Series, Elizabeth, vol. xci. No. 45. 
t Ibid., vol. xci. !N"o. 52. 
:!: Ibid., vol. xcii. ^s^o. 20. 



ip23.] ACQUAINTANCES AT COURT. 187 

separated from such an one as Edward Yere, the Earl 
of Oxford, now thirty-three years old. Brought long ago 
into singular contact w^ith Sidney from having been the 
favoured suitor for the hand of Anne Cecil, between 
the two there was acquaintance but no friendship. He 
had lately returned from a sojourn in Italy, and the 
report of his vicious practices there had for a time 
estranged from him not only his gentle wife, but even 
the whole Court. The efforts of his father-in-law 
Burghley, however, and his own handsome person and 
gay bearing had soon secured for him pardon. More- 
over, he had brought back from Venice sweet bags and 
other dainties, never before known in England, and the 
Queen^s heart was captivated when he put upon her 
hands a pair of perfumed gloves trimmed with tufts of 
coloured silk. 

Superior to either of these men was Thomas Sackville, 
Lord Buckhurst, now about forty-two. He w^as kins- 
man to the Queen, and in his youth she had helped to 
reclaim him from the prodigality into which he had fallen, 
by swearing that she would never know him until he 
knew himself Now he lived prudently and honestl}^ 
and was, in his way, a wise statesman and an upright 
courtier. He greatly helped the progress of literature, 
both by his own skilful pen and by his zealous patron- 
age of others. There had been some strife between 
him and Sir Henry Sidney, but in 1574 he had healed 
the breach by writing a very manly letter, offering- 
honourable amendment and urging that there should be 
peace between them. Eighteen years older than Philip, 



188 A MEMOIR OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY, [Chap. Vll. 

the latter must often have resorted to him for hterary 
talk and counsel. 

But Sidney's best adviser and truest friend was Sir 
Francis Walsingham. He had met and received great 
kindness from him more than five years ago when in 
Paris during part of the memorable massacre year, and 
from that time he had been fondly looked after by the 
wise Secretary. Walsingham, greatly deceived during 
his French embassage, never forgot the blunder. All 
through his tenure of office as Secretary of State, in 
which he succeeded Cecil, he was very cautious and 
very watchful of the Queen's interests. There was a 
sturdy honesty about him, which marks him out as 
almost the worthiest man in the whole Court. Indeed 
he was too honest and plain-spoken to prosper. No 
such rewards in property as fell to Elizabeth's useless 
followers ever reached him. Knighthood, however, 
cost nothing ; so in company with Hatton he had been 
knighted on the 1st of December, 1577. 

There is yet one more friend of Sidney's to be men- 
tioned. This was Sir Francis Knollys, now an elderly 
man of about sixty. Far more even than Walsingham 
he contrasted with the young and dashing courtiers 
who monopolized the Queen's sweetest smiles. Almost 
a Puritan in creed, he seems to have held honest place 
in a Court which must have been on some accounts 
distasteful to him, in order that he might watch and 
protect the interests of the radical party in the Church. 

His daughter Lettice, Countess of Essex, was also 
now with the Court. The general desire for a cessation 
of all the strifes which had prevailed during her hus- 



It 23.1 ACQUATNTAls^CES AT COUET. 189 

band's lifetime, and the great favour shown every where 
to her handsome and witty son, were the apparent 
reasons for her return ; although doubtless the true 
motive was a secret one best known to the Earl of 
Leicester. There is a statement, with some possibility 
of truth in it, that long ere now she had been privately 
wedded to the Earl ; at any rate, there was as much 
love existing between them as can generally be felt by 
a selfish, lustful man, and a haughty, ambitious woman, 
with many great and even good parts, but not over- 
delicate by nature. Therefore she came to Court and, 
for my Lord of Leicester's sake, endured the real frown 
which the Queen was seeking to twist into the likeness 
of a smile. 

With her must have been her eldest daughter, Pene- 
lope Devereux. She was now in her fifteenth year, 
growing rapidly in all womanly grace and beauty, and 
promptly learning how most skilfully to use her arts of 
fascination. Philip Sidney, as we have already seen, 
and as we shall see still more hereafter, was her avowed 
worshipper. But of his present worship we have no 
trustworthy record. Just now it may have been not 
very zealous ; for he had other thoughts than those of 
love to trouble him. 

He was only three -and-twenty ; he had but lately 
made a splendid beginning of courtier-life ; by every one 
he was either honoured or envied : yet already he was 
growing weary of his position, had begun to be weary 
of his whole life. To him the splendour of the Eliza- 
bethan Court was thraldom. He wanted to be work- 
ing, to be doing some good in the world. It was 



190 A MEMOIR OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. [Chap. VII. 

a noble discontent, bespeaking the greatness of his mind, 
and it moved him to loud and very honest complaints. 
" The use of the pen," he said mournfully in a letter 
to Languet, written from Court on the 1st of March, 
in this year, 1578, "has plainly gone from me; and 
my mind itself, if ever it was active about anything, is 
now, by reason of my indolent sloth, beginning imper- 
ceptibly to lose its strength, and to lose it without 
any reluctance. For Avith what end should our 
thoughts be directed to various kinds of knowledge, 
unless room be appointed for putting it in practice, so 
that the public welfare, which in a corrupt age we 
cannot hope for, may result ? Who would learn music, 
if not for the sake of giving pleasure '? or architecture, 
if not with a view to building '? But the mind, you will 
say, that particle of the Divine Mind, is educated by 
this thraldom. That, if we may believe it, is a very 
great advantage. But does it not rather appear that 
we thus give a very false, albeit a very beautiful, 
outside to our splendid errors '? For while the mind is 
thus, as it were, drawn out of itself, it cannot turn its 
force inwards for thorough self-examination, with which 
employment no other labour that men can undertake is 
at all to be compared. Do you not see that I am 
cleverly playing the stoic 1 yea, and unless you reclaim 
me, I shall presently be a cynic too." " 

Sidney was watching with great attention the pro- 
gress of affairs on the continent, especially in the 
Netherlands ; and he longed to take part in the strife. 

* Zurich Letters J Series II. p. 182. 



1573 



%^] m QUEST OF WORK. 191 



Since the new year his interest had been further 
quickened by the coming over from Germany of his 
friends Robert Beale and Daniel Rogers, '''"■ both of them 
experienced agents of the English Government at various 
foreign Courts. With these was Peter Butrech, whom 
Sidney playfully called the Equestrian Doctor, because 
he so thoroughly combined learning and soldiership in 
the service of Prince Casimir and in the general cause 
of Protestantism. He had come over to stir up as much 
English excitement as possible on behalf of the Hugue- 
not warfare ; and Sidney blamed Elizabeth very much 
because of her tardiness in giving help, or in any way 
listening to the honest arguments of Leicester, Walsing- 
ham, and others, who wished an army to be sent over 
at once.f If this had been done Sidney would have 
gone with the expedition. Its hindrance was a great 
trouble to him. "Unless God powerfully counteract 
it," he wrote to Languet, on the 10th of March, " I think 
I see our cause withering awa}^, and I am even now 
meditating some Indian project." :j: What this Indian 
project was w^e do not know ; most likely he himself 
did not know, save that he felt anxious to do anything 
rather than live listlessly in England, hearing fulsome 
compliments paid to the Queen, and conscious that from 
him like service was expected. 

Languet counselled very wisely. No one could be 
more zealous than he was for the advancement of the 



* Zurich Letters^ Series II. p. 181. 

t Ibid., p. 184 ; Langueti Bpistolce, p. 190. 

X Zurich Letters, Series II. p. 184. 



192 A MEMOIR OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. [Chap. vir. 

Belgian struggle on behalf of freedom ; but he was not 
unmindful of his young friend's safety, or of society's 
high claims upon him. He wished him to be a states- 
man rather than a soldier. " I would not/' he said in 
one letter, " even if I could, weaken or blunt the edge 
of your spirit ; but I must advise you now and then to 
reflect that young men who incautiously rush into 
danger almost always die ingloriously, and destroy their 
power of really serving their countr}^ For he who falls 
in his mere youth cannot have done very much for his 
nation. Look to it, therefore, and let no outrageous 
coveting of fame hurry you out of your proper track ; 
and be sure that you give not the name of courage to 
a false sentiment which only has something in common 
with it. This is the misfortune, or rather the folly, of 
our age, that so many men of noble birth think it more 
honourable to do the work of a soldier than that of a 
leader, and would rather win credit for their boldness 
than for their judgment.'' * Ten weeks later, he wrote 
still more decisively and clearly : " Most high born men 
are seized with this madness, that they covet a reputation 
earned by bloodshed, and believe that there can be no 
glory for them save that which is connected with the 
destruction of mankind. At any rate, it is wrong for 
you, whom God has adorned with so many splendid 
gifts, to feel as they do who are buried in the deepest 
shades of ignorance, and think that all human excel- 
lence consists in physical strength ; for let them be 
ever so strong, they are in this respect far inferior to 

* Langueti E]pisiolce, p. 190. 



if 23.] languet's ad vice about work. 193 

many brutes. Make use then of that particle of the 
Divine Mind, as you finely term it, for the safety, not 
for the ruin, of men. You need never fear that you 
will rust for want of work, if only you are wilHng to 
employ your mind. For in so large a kingdom as yours 
there can never be lacking chances of exercising your 
genius, so that many may see the good fruit of honest 
labour. You may be sure that praise and glory are the 
reward of goodness, and never fail of being duly paid. 
If you marry a wife, and beget children like yourself, 
you will be a better servant of your country than if 
you would cut the throats of a thousand Spaniards or 
Frenchmen." * 

It is odd that Languet should have been so very 
anxious for Sidney to be married. In almost every 
letter he urged it, sometimes playfully, at other times 
in all seriousness. In the one from which I am now 
quoting, he repeated the story told by Herodotus con- 
cerning Croesus, who, when asked by Cambyses whether 
he or his father were the better man, answered, " Sir, 
your father must be held better than you, for he was 
the father of the greatest of princes ; while you have as 
yet no son like yourself" f " You see," added Languet, 
"I am not trying, as you say, to cover faults with a 
specious and splendid colouring, nor am I recommend- 
ing to you idleness and ease, — at least if you believe 
the poet who advises any man that wishes plenty of 
trouble, to get him a wife." J 

* Langueti Epistolce, pp. 196, 19T. 
t Herodotus, lib. iii. c. 34. 
$ Langueti Bpistola, p. 19T. 



194 A MEMOIR OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. [Chap. VII. 

Whether troublesome or not, Sidney did not just 
now wish for a wife. He longed to be about some 
active work. If he could not join in the cause headed 
by the Prince of Orange and aided by all his conti- 
nental friends, he was anxious to do something else. 
Perhaps, as Languet had suspected, he was a little 
disposed to accompany Captain Frobisher in the third 
expedition, the largest till then ever equipped for 
the arctic seas, which he was busily preparing this 
spring under the auspices of the Earl of Warwick. But 
Sidney could not be spared. The Queen claimed his 
attendance at Court, and it was to his father's interest 
that he should be there. 

Sir Henry Sidney's troubles, though not so over- 
whelming as in the autumn of 1577, were by no 
means really removed. The Queen had for a time 
been satisfied. She had written one friendly letter 
at which the Lord Deputy expressed himself highly 
delighted.* But the old wound was not at all healed, 
— could never properly be healed without a change 
of Ehzabeth's whole character. The state of Ireland 
compelled frequent outlay of money for its defence. 
The Queen herself was sending to urge Sir Henry to 
be watchful and to make due preparations for meeting 
the impending dangers.f But she expected all this to 
be done without any drain upon her Exchequer, and, 
because it was not so, she was very angry. On the 
20th of January, Sir Francis Walsingham wrote to the 
Lord Deputy to say that Her Majesty was now some- 

* Sidney Papers, \ol I p. 232. t Ibid., p. 233. 



157S. 
jaEt.23, 



J KOYAL MEANNESS. 195 



what appeased, although, on account of the charges 
which continued, and were not hkelj to be lessened 
during his gOYernment, she was disposed to revoke 
him. Walsingham added that he felt it right to give 
him secret and early notice of this new change in the 
royal mind, and to assure him that he and all other 
friends at Court would do their utmost to have the 
recal effected under some such cover as the conferment 
of a peerage, due both to the Lord Deputy's credit and 
to the Queen's honour.''^ 

Her Majesty, however, was not acting in a very 
honourable way. " I hear," wrote poor Sir Henry on 
the 13th af February, "not a little to my grief and 
discomfort, that your Highness hath denied to sign 
your warrant to the payment of three thousand and one 
pounds, that is due unto me upon certain bills ; supposing 
that those bills were gained by me, or at the least were 
easily come by and procured. I am sorry, my most 
dear Sovereign, that my hard hap is such, so to be con- 
demned without cause, or suspected without desert ; 
and for trial of the truth, would to God it would please 
your Majesty to appoint commissioners, or some others 
of trust, to examine the matter and report what they 
find to your Highness. It would then plainly and truly 
appear unto you that I have been misreported unto 
your Majesty." He showed how the money was pro- 
perly his own, and went on to say that, in the present 
case, the Queen's conduct was especially hard, as he 
wanted the amount, all but the one odd pound, for 



Sidney Papers, voL i. p. 234. 

o 2 



196 A MEMOIR OF SIR THILIP SIDNEY. [Chap. vii. 

payment to the Earl of Pembroke as the residue of the 
marriage portion of his daughter Mary. This was a 
matter in which his honour was especially involved, and 
to be thus unjustly thwarted by Her Majesty was a great 
grief and torment to him.* 

It is not strange that Philip should have little liking 
for the Court, and should find no enjoyment in the 
smiles that were being freely showered upon him by the 
same mistress who used such meanness towards his 
father. He must stay at Court, however, if only for his 
father's sake. He had to keep close watch upon the 
progress of affairs, do all that he could on the spot, and 
as need arose, send truthful report and sound advice 
to Dublin. All this was not easy. " So strangely and 
diversely goes the course of the world,'' he wrote sen- 
tentiously on the 25th of April, " by the interchanging 
humours of those that govern it, that, though it be most 
noble always to have one mind and one constancy, yet 
can it not always be directed to one point, but must 
needs sometimes alter his course according as the force 
of others' changes drives it." He then proceeded to 
tell his father that — whereas he had lately advised him 
to return as soon as convenient, being encouraged 
thereto by the assurance his best friends had given 
him of the favourable consideration which Sir Henry 
would meet — he now thought it well for him to 
stay in Ireland as long as was possible, at any rate 
till Michaelmas, when his term of office would expire, 
and he might come back with least causing of scandal. 

* Sidney Papers, vol. i. pp. 235 — 238. 



lors. 

iEc 



I3J FILIAL HELP AITD C0U2sSEL. 197 



" In the mean time your friends may|Jabour here to 
bring to a better pass such your reasonable and honour- 
able desires, which time can better bring forth than 
speech ; and among which friends, before God, there is 
none proceeds either so thoroughly or so wisely as your 
lady, my mother. For mine own part I have had only 
light from her." * 

This letter shows us how dutifully and prudently 
Philip was struggling to be of use in these dijficult 
affairs of his father. Another and shorter letter written 
by him three days later pleasantly lays open to us 
his mind, in its friendliest and most playful mood. 
It is addressed to Mr. Edward Waterhouse, at that time 
attending upon Sir Henry Sidney in Dublin : 

"My good Ned, 

" Never since you went that ever you wrote to me; and yet I 
have not failed to do some friendly offices for jon here. * How know 
I that?' say you; ' I cannot tell.' But I know that no letters I have 
received from you. TJius doth unkindness make me fall to a point of 
kindness. Good Ned, either come or write : let me either see thee, 
hear thee, or read thee. Your other friends, that knowmore, will 
write more fully : I, of myself, thus much, always one and in one 
case, me toto exultans teres atque rotundus. Commend me to my Lord 
President, to the noble Sir Nicholas, whom I bear a special good wiU 
to, and to my cousin Henry Harrington, whom I long to see in health. 
Sir Nicholas Bagnol, Mr. Agard's daughter, my cousin Spikman for 
your sake, and whoever is Mayor of Dublin for my sake, and even at 
his house when you think good. I bid you farewell. From Court, this 
28thof AprH, 1578. 

" Your very loving friend, 

"Philip Sidney. "t 

A month later Sidney wrote another short letter to 

* Sidney Papers, vol. i. pp. 247, 248. 
t Ibid., pp. 389, 390. 



198 A MEMOIR OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. [Chap. VII. 

Dublin, also top characteristic to be passed by. This 
second one was written to Mr. Edmund Molineux, the 
Lord Deputy's secretary. Some weeks before, Philip 
had said to his father, " I must needs impute it to some 
men about you that there is little written from you or 
to you that is not perfectly known to your professed 
enemies ; '' * and now his suspicions wrongly but not 
unnaturally fell upon the secretary. He wrote to him 
in high anger : 

" Mr. Molineux, 

" Few words are best. My letters to my father have come 
to the ears of some: neither can I condemn any but you. If it be so, 
you have played the veiy knave with me ; and so I will make you 
know, if I have good proof of it. But that for so much as is past. 
For that is to come, I assure you, before God, that if ever I know you 
do so much as read any letter I write to my father, without his com- 
mandment or my consent, I will thrust my dagger into you. And 
trust to it, for I speak in earnest. In the meantime, farewell. From 
Court, this last of May, 1578. 

"By me, 

"Philip Sidney. "t 

Molineux met this haughty, indignant, and withal 
unjust treatment with great moderation and dignity. 

*' Sir," he wrote back, " I have received a letter from you which 
as it is the first, so the same is the sharpest that I ever received from 
any ; and therefore it amazeth me the more to receive such a one from 
you, since I have (the world can judge) deserved better somewhere, 
howsoever it pleased you to condemn me now. But since it is (I pro- 
test to God) without cause, or yet just ground of suspicion, you use 
me thus, I bear the injury more patiently for a time, and mine inno- 
cency I hope in the end shaU try mine honesty, and then I trust you 

* Sidney Papers, vol. i. p. 247. 
+ Ibid., p. 256. 



£^23.] PHILIP AS PLAYWRIGHT. 199 



wiU confess that you have done me "wrong. And since your pleasure 
so is expressed, that I shall not henceforth read any of your letters 
(although I must confess I have heretofore taken both great delight 
and profit in reading some of them), yet, upon so hard a condition as 
you seem to offer, I will not hereafter adventure so great a peril, but 
obey you herein. Howbeit, if it had pleased you, you might have 
commanded me in a far greater matter with a far less penalty. From 
the Castle of Dublin, the 1st of July, 1578. 

"Yours, when it shall please you better to conceive of me, humbly 
to command, 

" E. MoLrN'EUX." * 



But this is in advance of our chronology. Sidney, as 
we have seen, was with the Court in April. Soon after- 
wards he attended the Queen on the first portion of her 
customary summer progress. Going first to Theobald's, 
the residence of Lord Treasurer Burghley, Her Majesty 
lodged there for three or four days, and then proceeded 
to Wanstead, in Epping Forest, f This place had been 
purchased, a year or so before, by the Earl of Leicester, 
and now, having fitted it in princely style, he was 
honoured with a visit from the Queen. He does not 
seem to have prepared any such splendid entertain- 
ments as have made Kenilworth memorable ; but — and 
this is a matter more important in relation to our pre- 
sent theme — he induced his nephew PhiHp to write a 
masque to be performed for Her Majesty's amusement. 

This masque, entitled The Lady of the May, is the 
first of Sidney's known compositions. Giving small 
evidence of dramatic power, it is w^orth reading for its 
indication of the author's mind. In it there was 



* Sidney Papers, vol. i. p. 25 G. 

t Nichols, Royal Progresses of Elizahth, vol, ii. p. 94. 



200 A ]\rEMOIIl OP SIR rillLIP SIDNEY. [Chap. vii. 

avoidance of such fulsome flattery of the Queen as 
was generally thought needful in performances pre- 
pared for her pleasure. It contained some flattering 
words about her, but Sidney shrewdly put them into 
the mouths of speakers of whom he was making fun, 
and in that way showed, to others if not to the vain 
Queen herself, that, instead of praising, he was really 
laughing at her. 

At Wanstead Her Majesty remained some da}^^, and 
then she seems to have gone to her own palace at 
Greenwich. There, towards the end of May, she enter- 
tained Captain Frobisher and the other adventurers 
starting for the northern seas. Towards all of them 
she used gentle speech, and to Frobisher she gave a gold 
chain as a keepsake. 

Philip Sidney, doubtless, was present on that occa- 
sion. On the 1st of June he gave proof of his friendship 
for Du Plessis Mornay and his wife, who were again in 
London, by standing as god-father to their infant 
daughter Elizabeth.''' At about this period, moreover, 
he received some appointment from the Queen.f " Be- 
fore,'' wrote Languet, " I was fearful lest the ardour of 
youth might suggest some rash project, and fate snatch 
you from your country and your friends to cause you 
an inglorious end ; for I heard talk about distant 
voyages, and Belgian soldiering. But now that you 
are no longer your own master, and that your new 

* Memoir es de Bu Flessis Mornay, tome i. p. 119. 

t Zoucli saj's lie was made cupbearer to the Queen.' I cannot 
find liis authority for \ the statement, although it is plausible 
enough . 



iEtS. ] HOKOUES, REAL AND FANCIED. 201 

honours have so tied you to your country that you 
must consult its advantage rather than your own 
pleasure, I am a good deal rid of my anxiety : not that 
I think you less liable to danger than you were before, 
but that the perils you have to undergo for your country 
must now bring you honour and praise. I congratulate 
you, therefore, upon the favour with which your wise 
sovereign has honoured you, only to excite you to the 
further pursuit of virtue.'' '"" 

Whatever may have been Sidney's new office, Languet 
appears to have over-estimated its importance, just as 
a month or two later, he w^as inclined to believe an 
absurd report that the young man had been appointed 
Vice- Admiral of the Fleet.f But it is clear that, not- 
withstanding the growing disfavour with which his 
father was being regarded and the openness with which 
he himself supported the just cause, PhiHp was rising 
steadily in the royal liking and gaining much admira- 
tion from both courtiers and common folk. 

About Midsummer, or soon after, Queen Elizabeth set 
out on a progress of unusual splendour, and Sidney wdth 
the rest of the Court, started with her. After paying- 
some short visits in passing, the royal party reached 
Audley End on Saturday, the 26th of July. Thither, 
according to arrangement, the Vice-Chancellor of Cam- 
bridge University, and all the Heads of Colleges came 
on Sunday to pay their respects to Her Majesty. On 
their behalf was uttered a very laudatory oration, 



* Langueti Epistol(Sf pp. 199, 
t Ibid., p. 203. 



200. 



202 A MEMOIR OF SIR rillLIP SIDNEY. [Cap. vil. 

showing how the universities had been nourished by her, 
as by a loving nurse, in all piety and all learning. Then 
they presented to her a splendid copy of Robert 
Stephens' new and erudite edition of the Greek Testa- 
ment, bound in red velvet, and with the arms of England 
depicted on each side. Lastly, they gave her a pair of 
gloves, worth sixty shillings, exquisitely perfumed, and 
covered with embroidery and goldsmith's work. " Her 
Majesty, beholding the beauty of the said gloves," says 
a contemporary authority, " as in great admiration and 
in token of her thankful acceptation of the same, held 
up one of her hands, and then, smelling unto them, put 
them half-way upon her hands." Presents of gloves 
which cost twenty shilHngs a pair, were next made, with 
suitable speeches, to Lords Burghley and Leicester; and 
others, which had the more modest value of four shil- 
lings and twopence, were offered to the Earl of Sussex, 
Lord Hunsdon, Sir Christopher Hatton, Sir Francis 
Knollys, and some other courtiers. The day was closed 
with some philosophical disputations, in which a pro- 
minent part was taken by Mr. Gabriel Harvey of Pem- 
broke Hall. After three hours' talking, during which 
Lord Burghley was moderator, the discussion ended at 
midnight, when the learned guests were honourabl}^ 
dismissed. They had to finish their busy Sunday by 
walking, at that unreasonable hour, all the way back to 
Cambridge, no lodging being procurable at Saffron 
Walden.^ 

In the beginning of August the Queen, continuing her 

* Nichols, Progresses of Elizabeth, vol. ii. pp. 110 — 115. 



ML'i'.'] THE ROYAL PEOGRESS. 203 

journey, entered Suffolk, where great preparations had 
been made for her reception. Five hundred gentlemen 
all clad either in white or in black velvet, together with 
fifteen hundred serving men, well and bravely mounted., 
came out to greet her.* At many houses in succession 
she was lodged and feasted ; and from Suffolk, where 
her entertainers were chiefly noblemen, she went on 
to Norfolk, whose inhabitants, less aristocratic, were 
equally hearty in their demonstrations of loyalty. At 
jN'orwich, Thomas Churchyard was employed to furnish 
masques and pageants, which proved to be far superior 
in literary merit to Sidney's Ladi/ of the May, and with 
them Elizabeth was much pleased. She Hngered in 
the neighbourhood for some time, and went home by 
way of Wanstead. 

She was not at "Wanstead on the 20th September. 
On that day the Earl of Leicester was privately wedded 
to the Countess of Essex. About this marriage there is 
much mystery ; towards the solution of which many 
surmises were afloat at the time. According to one, 
perhaps the best, there had already been an espousal 
quite secret and almost unwitnessed ; and now, the 
rumour of it having come to the ears of Sir Francis 
Knollys, that sturdy old courtier had compelled the 
Earl to place his daughter in a position whi^ would 
remove from her all possibility of dishonour. At any 
rate, whether for the first or for the second time, the 
marriage was effected at Wanstead. The union, how- 
ever, was kept as secret as possible, only Sir Francis 

* Nichols, vol. ii. p. 116. 



204 A MEMOIR OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. [Cuap. vii. 

KnoUys and one other witness being present. The Earl 
of Leicester still flirted with his Queen, and his wife 
continued to be known as the Dowager Countess of 
Essex. 

Philip Sidney was certainly not at the wedding ; nor 
does it appear that he was long in attendance on the 
Queen after her visit to Audley End. Foreign business 
seems just now to have fully occupied him. Some 
months earlier his friend Prince Casimir had been 
appointed Queen EHzabeth's agent, to watch the affairs 
of Germany and the Netherlands. For this ofi&ce, 
indeed, he was selected, partly through the interest of 
Sidney, and by the advice of Languet. Both men sadly 
over-estimated his powers. " To no one," Languet had 
written on the 26th of December, 1577, "can this com- 
mand be better entrusted than to him. In fact, you 
yourself know that he is the only man in Germany to 
whom it could be entrusted at all, whether we consider 
his zeal and respect for her gracious Majesty and your 
nation, or the splendour of his birth, or the fitness of 
his age, or his successful training in arms, or the good- 
will of military men towards him." '"' 

Queen EKzabeth's judgment was almost as favourable. 
She therefore nominated Casimir her lieutenant, and 
furnished him with money for collecting a little arm^^ 
The Prince left the Palatinate about the middle of June, 
and reached Zutphen in July, where he loitered idly, 
through several precious weeks. On the 26 th of August, 
at the head of twelve thousand men, he joined the Belgian 

* Langueti Ejpistolce, p. IS 4. 



mS.] FOEEIGN AKD FAMILY CLAIMS. 205 

troops, saying pompously to the Prince of Orange that 
now he hoped there would be two heads under one hat.* 
When Sidney heard, early in July, that his friend 
was in the field, all his old anxiety to share the strife 
revived. This he would doubtless have done had not a 
touching letter arrived from his father. " Philip,'^ wrote 
the Lord Deputy, on the 1st of August, when he was on 
the point of returning to England to surrender his office, 
" by the letters you wrote me by Sackford, you have 
discovered unto me your intention to go over into the 
Low Countries to accompany Duke Casimir, who hath, 
with so noble offer and by so honourable means convited 
you : which disposition of your virtuous mind as I must 
needs much commend in you, so when I enter into the 
consideration of mine own estate, and call to mind what 
practices, informations, and wicked accusations are 
devised against me, and what an assistance in the de- 
fence of those causes your presence would be unto me, 
reposing myself so much both upon your help and judg- 
ment, I strive betwixt honour and necessity what allow- 
ance I may best give of that motion for your going. 
Howbeit, if you think not my matters of that weight and 
difficulty, as I hope they be not, but that they may well 
enough by myself, without your assistance or any other, 
be brought to an honourable end, I will not be against 
your determination ; yet would wish you, before your 
departure, that you come to me at the water's side, 
about the latter end of this month, to take your leave of 
me, and so from thence to depart towards your intended 

* Motley, Dutch EepuhUc, vol. iii. p. 336. 



206 A MEMOIR OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. IChap. vii. 

journey. You must now bear with mo that I write not 
this unto you with mine own hand, which I would have 
done if the indisposition of my body had not been such 
as I could not. God prosper you in that you shall go 
about, and send you to win much honour and credit ; 
and I send you my daily blessing.^^ *" 

After receiving such a letter, Philip could hardly 
leave England. He again abandoned the enterprize on 
which his heart was set. And it was very well that he 
did ; for nothing but mischief resulted from Casimir's 
proceedings. Even Languet rejoiced in his friend's 
absence. " If you had come into Belgium," he said, " I 
should immediately have hurried to meet you. It would 
have been extremely delightful to me to have seen you ; 
yet I should not have been altogether pleased at your 
coming amongst men with whom you could not have 
lived happily, and to a place in which you could have 
had no enjoyment beyond the friendship of Prince 
Casimir, who of course would have shown you every 
attention. But it would have been cheerless work for 
you living in a camp where you would have seen no 
examples of valour, no tokens of good soldiership, — only 
troops disobeying their leaders, and acting with inso- 
lence and cowardice. There are other reasons also, 
besides those which you mention, that might well keep 
you from this expedition. Lucan makes Cato exclaim : 
' Brutus, there is no blacker crime than civil war ! ' 

* Sidney Papers, vol, i. p. 392. — On the same 1st of August 
Lord Deputy also wrote to Leicester, asking liim to consider what was 
best for Philip to do, and to ad\dse him accordingly. The letter is 
among the Coiton MSS., Titus, B. xii. fo. 250. 



Mu'ii] JUST AND UNJUST WAEFARE. 207 

and Cicero says, ' No war is just save that wliich is 
necessary/ Now, although the Belgians have good 
cause to defend their liberty by arms against the 
tyranny of the Spaniards, this is nothing to you. If 
indeed your Queen had been bound by treaty to send 
them troops, and had commanded you to go with these 
troops, then the obligation to obey her who is your ruler 
would have made you regard the enemies of the Belgian 
States as your own foes. But from a mere desire for 
praise and glory, and that you might give public proof 
of your courage, you determined to treat as your per- 
sonal enemies those who seemed to you to be taking the 
wrong side in the war. It is not your business, it is 
not for any private person, to pass judgment on a ques- 
tion of this kind ; it belongs to the magistrate (by 
magistrate I mean the prince), who, whenever a ques- 
tion of the sort is to be determined, calls to his council 
those men whom he believes to be just and wise. 
Young noblemen like you are apt to consider that 
nothing brings you more honour than wholesale slaugh- 
ter ; and you are generally guilty of the greatest 
injustice, for if you kill a man against whom you have 
no lawful cause of war, you are kilhng one who, as far 
as concerns you, is innocent. The ancients, though 
they knew nothing of the true God, were strictly reli- 
gious in this matter. The elder Cato, when his son was 
going to Spain, wrote to charge him against using his 
sword until he had taken an oath to his general^ for, 
as a just man, he might not do it otherwise. But this 
age of ours has lost all honourable discipline, and laughs 
at such principles.^' " Great praise is due,'' added Lan- 



208 A MEMOIR OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. [Cuap. vii. 

guet, after more talk on this subject, " to those who 
bravely defend their country from foreign invasion ; 
but they are to be praised, not for the number of foes 
whom they have killed, but for the defence they have 
given to their own cities. Those are the wars in w^hich 
true glory is won ; but in our times they are most 
highly admired whose mad ambition causes most blood- 
shed.'^ -^^ 

Here Languet was evidently thinking of Don John of 
Austria and some other notable men of the day, whom 
even enemies admired for their wild love of war. " I 
am very much grieved,'^ he said, in another part of the 
letter, " to hear you say that you are weary of the life 
to wdiich I have no doubt God has called you, and that 
you wish to flee from the ghtter of your Court and 
betake yourself to some secluded place, where you may 
avoid the troubles which perplex and engross all who 
live within the circle of government. I know that in 
the splendour of a Court there are so many temptations 
to vice that it is very hard for a man to hold himself 
clean among them, and to stand upright on such a slip- 
pery ground : but you must struggle virtuously and 
boldly against these difficulties, remembering that the 
glory of victory is always great in proportion to the 
peril undergone. Nature has endowed you with great 
gifts of mind and body ; fortune has favoured you with 
noble birth and many splendid accomplishments. From 
your i)oyhood you have made study of all the most 
useful arts. Will you then, furnished with such wea- 

* Langueti EpistolcE^ pp. 207 — 209. 



^^tf'ls. ] LADY MAKY SIDNEY'S BED-ROOM. 209 

pons, refuse the help which your country demands, 
and bury in the earth the large talent which God has 
entrusted to you '? " '" 

In nearly every letter that he wrote to Languet, 
Sidney complained of the ignoble life which he was 
almost compelled to follow. Good sense was in his 
friend's moralizing, although it is not likely to have 
given him lasting comfort. Just now, however, there 
was some satisfaction for him in the company of his 
father, and some employment in helping to manage 
the family affairs. 

Towards the end of September the Lord Deputy 
quitted Ireland, and he reached London about the 
middle of October. On the 11th of that month, Lady 
Mary Sidney wrote a letter to Edmund Molineux, who 
had returned to England shortly before his master. 
This letter gives us very quaint information respecting 
courtly usage in the age of EUzabethan splendour. 
" I have thought good," wrote Lady Sidney, " to put 
you in remembrance to move my Lord Chamberlain, in 
my Lord's name, to have some other room than my 
chamber for my Lord to have his resort unto, as he was 
wont to have ; or else my Lord will be greatly troubled 
when he shall have any matter of dispatch, my lodging, 
you see, being very little, and myself continually sick 
and not able to be much out of my bed. For the night- 
time, one roof, with God's grace, shall serve us ; for the 
day-time, the Queen will look to have my chamber 
always in readiness for her Majesty's coming thither ; 

* Lajigueti Eplstoke, p. 210. 



210 A MEMOni OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. I Chap. VII. 

and though my Lord himself can be no impediment 
thereto by his own presence, yet his Lordship, trusting 
to no place else to be provided for him, will be, as I 
said before, troubled for want of a convenient place to 
the dispatch of such people as shall have occasion to 
come to him. Therefore I pray yoa move my Lord of 
Sussex for a room for that purpose, and I will have it 
hanged and hned for him with stuff* from home/^ * 

There is something very odd in the state of things 
here indicated. The invalid wife of the Lord Deputy 
of Ireland has only a bed-room to live in while she 
waits upon the Court. The bed-room will serve for my 
Lady to receive visits from the Queen, or for my Lord 
to discuss public business with any, gteat or little, who 
may call upon him ; but it will hardly hold both 
sovereign and subject at the same time. Therefore, 
another room is asked for, on condition that her Majesty 
shall not be put to the expense of furnishing the same, 
as suitable stuff* can be brought from Sir Henry Sidney's 
own abode. 

Yet this was too great a favour to be granted readily, 
if it was granted at all. A few days later, on a Mon- 
day, Lady Sidney wrote again to Molineux, saying, 
" You have used the matter very well ; but we must do 
more yet for the good dear Lord than let him thus be 
dealt withal. Hampton Court I never }- et knew so full 
as there were not spare rooms in it vrhen it hath been 
thrice better filled than at this j)resent it is. But some 
will be sorry, perhaps, my Lord should have so sure 

■^ Sidney Fapcrs, vol. i. p. 271. 



1578. 
JEt. 24, 



] THE SIDNEYS AT COURT. 211 



footing in tl\e Court. Well, all may be as well, when 
the good God will : the whilst I pray let us do what we 
may for my Lord's ease and quiet/' She suggested 
various ways in which Molineux might seek the loan, 
during day-time, of a room which could be a sort of 
office or parlour for her husband. But if all these 
failed, she added, " when the worst is known, old Lord 
Harry and his old Moll will do as well as they can in 
parting, like good friends, the small portion allotted our 
long service in Court." " 

It is to be hoped that in the end Lady Sidney gained 
her point. At any rate the Lord Deput}^, on his return 
to England, and after resignation of his office, seems to 
have gone for a part of the winter to lodge at Hampton 
Court. There was much to be done in completing his 
Irish business, in guarding against the treacherous 
attacks of his many enemies, in setting affairs in their 
proper light before the Queen, and, hardest of all, in 
seeking to procure from her so much favour as was his 
due. In all these Philip gave him much help ; indeed 
it is likely that he did the chief part of the work. Sir 
Henry, though now only in his fiftieth year, was almost 
broken in body, if not in mind. Harassed on all sides, 
he trusted implicitly to his loving, bold, and clear-headed 
son, who, now just twenty-four years old, had all the 
freshness of youth, and moreover had the very great 
advantage of being much liked by the Queen. 

Yet Sh^ Henry Sidney was not now ostensibl}^ out of 
favour with his sovereio-n. She had no fair excuse for 



Sidney Papers, vol. i. p. 2^1. 

p 2 



212 



A MEMOIR OP SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. [Cuxr. vii. 



being angry uitli him ; perhaps the anger which slie 
did feel was nearly balanced by a kindly recollection of 
the great services he had done her, and a knowledge 
of the nobleness of mind to which, however much 
she would, she could not blind herself Forced to 
resign his appointment in Ireland, he retained office 
as Lord President of Wales, a situation almost equal 
to the other in dignity, though far inferior in real 
importance and in emolument. There was an under- 
current of meanness, such as always marked the 
royal dissatisfaction; but a fair show of favour was 
on the surface. 

Of the detail of these months, however, as concerns 
either Philip or his father, we have very scanty record. 
They, together with Lady Sidney and the Countess of 
Pembroke and her husband, kept Christmas at Hamp- 
ton Court, vrhere there seems to have been less gaiety 
than usual. On the first day of 1579, not so many or 
such handsome presents were made to her Majesty as 
had been tendered twelve months ago. Sir Henry Sidney 
presented a gold ornament on which was carved an image 
of Diana, richly garnished with diamonds, one of them 
much larger than the rest, with three large pearls and 
with three rubies. Lady Mary brought a chemise, 
besides two cambric pillow-cases, adorned with black 
work and edged with a broad bone-lace. Philip pre- 
sented a bodice of white sarcenet, quilted and embroi- 
dered with gold, silver, and silk of divers colours, with 
a passamaine lace of gold and silver round about it. 
The Countess of Pembroke, following the fashion wdiich 
was common this year, made a plain substantial gift of 



MTdi.! NEW YEAE's gifts. 213 

ten pounds, and her husband offered double that sum."^^* 
As usual, the Queen made return-gifts of gold plate. 
Sir Henry Sidney received a hundred and thirty-eight 
ounces, and to his wife were presented three gilt cups 
and covers, weighing in all thirty ounces. To the Earl 
of Pembroke was given a bowl and cover weighing 
twenty-nine ounces, and to his lady a gilt pot of 
twenty-three ounces. Only a score of ounces fell to 
Philip Sidney's share.f 

The festivities of the New Year, if not remarkably 
J)rilliant, were of long continuance. The chief cause of 
this was the coming over of Prince Casimir. The 
Prince had not done much good by his expedition 
into the Netherlands. After making a show of his 
twelve thousand soldiers at Zutphen, he had retired 
to Ghent, and there he passed two or three months, 
quarrelling with the towns-people and with his own 
troops. The former resented his imperious bear- 
ing, and the latter complained of not receiving their 
pay. It would have been well if Casimir, always in 
want of money, had given heed in time to the Landgrave 
William's warning, that it were better to have thirty 
thousand devils at one's back than thirty thousand 
German troops with no money to give them, it being- 
possible to pay the devils with the sign of the cross, 
while the soldiers could not be got rid of save by hard 
silver and hard knocks.:|: In December, the Prince of 



* Nicliols, Yol. ii. pp. 249— 2G3. 

t Ibid., pp. 264—272. 

t Motley, Bise of the Butch FicimhUc, toI. iii. pp. 385, 380. 



214 A MEMOIR OF Sill PHILIP SIDNEY. [Chap. vii. 

Orange went to Ghent to expostulate with him and to 
repair the harm which his presence had helped to pro- 
duce. At about the same time Queen Ehzabeth wrote 
a very severe letter, upbraiding him for his folly and 
recklessness. But her anger was not very lasting. 
Casimir had warm friends and admirers in England, 
Sidney and Leicester and Walsingham especially, who 
believed in his genius and who helped to keep him in 
favour. To the Queen's reproof he replied by coming 
over, as soon as he could, partly to excuse and partly 
to justify himself, and he was favourably received. . 

With him came Hubert Languet, chiefly,- as it appears, 
for the sake of meeting with Sidney. The poor old 
man was afraid that he should be deprived of this 
pleasure ; for early in December he had been seized 
with fever and some sort of eye-disease which hindered 
him from reading or doing work of any kind. "But I 
will try all that I can,'' he wrote on the 13th of Janu- 
ary, " even if it should be at the peril of my life." * 
Fortunately he recovered in time enough to accompany 
the Prince, and the two, with their attendants, reached 
London on Thursday the 22nd of the month, having 
been met on the way to Canterbury and escorted thence 
by Sir Henry Sidney, f 

At seven o'clock in the evening they landed at the 
Tower, where they were very honourably received by a 
number of noblemen and gentlemen, by Mr. Philip Sid- 
ney among the rest, and led by torch-hght to Sir Thomas 

* Langueti Epistolcey p. 213. 

+ State Paper Office MSS. Domestic Correspondence, Elizabeth, 
vol. clix. Xo. 1. 



if 24.] CASBim AND LAKGUET IN ENGLAND. 215 

Gresham's house in Bisliopsgate Street. There a band 
of drums and fifes and other musical instruments 
sounded for them a hearty welcome. The next two 
days were spent in the City. In the splendid mer- 
chant's house Casimir was lodged and feasted, and by 
the Londoners he was treated with all possible honour. 
The corporation presented to him a chain and some 
plate worth two thousand crowns. '''' 

On Sunday, the 25th of January, he took boat to 
"Westminster and waited upon the Queen. As he 
entered the Palace, Her Majesty came out and essayed 
to kiss him. But he, as we are told, not trained to the 
English custom, humbly yet resolutely refused. Nor 
was this his only resistance to Elizabeth's friendly con- 
duct. She led him with her own hand through the 
great hall into the presence chamber, and, as the pas- 
sages were draughty on that cold day, she bade him 
put on his hat. This he would not do, saying that in 
all things he was Her Majesty's servant to command. 
" Then," replied the Queen, " if you are my servant to 
command, I request that you will put on your hat." 
He still persisted, however, showing how he was bound 
to serve Her Majesty in all things saving in such as 
were to his own reproach ; but that it would be a 
very disgraceful thing for him to cover his head in 
the presence of so gracious a mistress.f Then, all 
needful compliments being paid, he proceeded to talk 

* Nichols, Progresses of Mizahetli, vol. ii, pp. 2TT, 278. 

t See a letter from Mr. Broughtou to Mr. Bagot, published from 
the Blithefield MSS. in Devereux's Lives and Letters of the Earls of 
LsseXf vol. i. p. 169. 



216 A MEMOIR OF SIR rillLIP SIDNEY. (Cixap.vii. 

of business matters, and he seems to have explained 
everything to Ehzabeth's satisfaction. 

During the Aveek thus begun he lodged in Somerset 
House, Avhere the Queen provided food for him. Some 
of his days he spent in hunting at Hampton Court, and 
he shot one stag in Hyde Park. In these and all his 
other amusements we may imagine the large but unre- 
corded share taken by Sidney. His name is not men- 
tioned in connection with any particular proceeding, 
but we know that he was foremost among the courtiers 
in their hosmtable conduct. He must have taken 
part in the jousting and tilting which were performed 
for the Prince's pleasure on the following Sunday, the 
1st of February. On Monday there was more amuse- 
ment of the same sort, as well as some fighting at 
barriers with swords and on horseback. On Tuesday 
Casimir dined in the City with the Lord Mayor and 
Aldermen ; and on Wednesday he was entertained by 
the Duchess of Sussex, at her house called Barbican, in 
Red Cross Street, while on Thursday he was amused at 
the Steelyard. On the third Sunday, the 8th of February, 
he again visited the Queen, who, at Whitehall, initiated 
him as a Knight of the Garter. .Besides all these 
engagements, he seems to have found time for visiting 
various noblemen, especially the Earl of Leicester, at 
Wanstead. " As he is liked here,'' wrote the Earl, " so 
he liketh his entertainment, and taketh in good part the 
great courtesy he findeth."'"' 

* ^Nichols, vol. ii. p. 278 ; Devereux, vol. i. p. 170 ; Lodge, 
Illustrations of British History (ed. of 179G), vol. ii. p. 201. 



it 24. ] CASIMIR AND LANGTJET IN ENGLAND. 217 

On Thursday, the 12th of February, Casimir took 
leave of the Queen, who made him a parting present 
of t^YO gold cups, valued at three hundred pounds 
a piece. " There hath been somewhat to do," wrote 
Gilbert Talbot to his father, the Earl of Shrewsbury, 
" to bring her unto it, and Mr. Secretary Walsingham 
bare the brunt thereof"* 

To Languet, who took an unostentatious part in all 
these three weeks' amusements, it was a subject of 
great grief that he had to depart without saying 
farewell to Sidney. " Though I had nothing to give 
you but tears and sighs, I regret that those tears and 
sighs could not be a token to you of the greatness of 
my love. But it was not my fault, for our people were 
hastening away as if they were parting from enemies 
instead of friends, and I should have given great 
offence if I singly had resolved to be wise instead of 
being mad, like the rest.'^ As it was, Languet would 
have been left behind, if he had not borrowed a horse 
from some one's servant.f 

Though Philip was out of the way at the time, Lan- 
guet had the company of Sir Henry Sidne}^, who attended 
the party either to Dover or to the South Foreland.J 
Between the two men a strong friendship had grown 
out of Languet's stay in England. The Huguenot also 
became warmly attached to the Countess of Pembroke, 
and others of the Sidney kindred. Of Philip's great 



* Ibid,, passim. 

t Langueti Bpistolce, p. 214. 

:l: Ibid., p. 215. 



218 A MEMOIR OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. [Chap. VII. 

friends, Fulke Grevillc and Edward Dyer, moreover, he 
thought very highly. The former was now crossing 
the Channel with him ; of the latter he said, " His 
friendship is like a gem added to my treasures." '"' 

Languet learnt much from his visit. Previously 
he had rejoiced greatly in the favour shown by the 
Queen to Philip, and urged him by all means to keep 
a firm footing at Court ; but, after his return to 
Belgium, his advice was very different. " I was glad," 
he wrote in one letter, '' to see you in high favour with 
your Queen, and so much thought of by all your coun- 
trymen. But, to tell the truth, the habits of your 
Court seemed to me less manly than I could have 
wished. Most of the courtiers appeared to seek for 
applause rather by an affected courtesy, than by those 
virtues w^hich are healthful to the State, and which are 
the chief adornments of generous minds — of high-born 
men. I was much grieved, therefore, and so were 
your other friends who were with me, because you 
seemed to be wasting the flower of your youth upon 
such things. I fear lest your noble nature should 
be warped, lest by habit you should be brought to 
take pleasure in pursuits which only weaken the 
mind." f 

Perhaps there was some ground for Languet's fears. 
It is hardly conceivable that Sidney, young, handsome, 
and witty, notably favoured by the Queen, highly 
honoured by all the worthiest frequenters of the Court, 
and famous among the multitudes who lived far away 

* Langueti Epistolce, p. 215. 
X Ibid., p. 243. 



it 24.] I^ DISPRAISE OF A COUETLY LIFE. 219 

from courtly circles, should not have found much 
enjoyment in his position. Of course he liked the 
compliments which were paid to him, and the respect 
in which he was held ; but he was not at all satisfied 
with these. Such tokens of the power which was in 
him only reminded him that that power was rotting 
for want of use. From first to last this thought was 
with him, and it grew stronger and more galling every 
day. It is the burden of many of his writings; it is 
constantly showing itself, or shown to be hidden, in 
the few letters which are extant. Languet could not 
hold it half as strongly, or* express it a tithe as 
eloquently, as did Sidney himself " Well was I," he 
exclaimed, in one of his pastoral poems — 



" Well was I while under shade 
Oaten reeds me music made, 
Striving with my mates in song, 
Mixing mirth our songs among. 
Greater was the shepherd's treasure • 
Than this false, fine, courtly pleasure ; 

' ' Where, how many creatui-es be, 
So many pufi^d in mind I see ; 
Like to Juno's birds of pride, 
Scarce each other can abide ; 
Friends like to black swans appearing, 
^Sooner these than those in hearing. 

" Therefore, Pan, if thou mayst be 
Made to listen unto me. 
Grant, I say, if silly man 
May make treaty to god Pan, 
That I, without thy denying, 
May be still to thee relying. 



A MEMOIR OF SIR rillLIP SIDNEY. [Cuap. vil. 

* ' Only for my two loves' sake, 
In whose love I pleasure take, 
Only two do me deliglit 
With their ever pleasing sight ; 
Of all men to thee retaining 
Grant me with those two remaining.* 

" So shall I to thee always 

With my reeds sound mighty praise, 
And first lamb that shall befall, 
Yearly deck thine altar shall. 
If thee it please to be reflected. 
And I from thee not rejected." f 



The two friends, at tliought of whom Sidney's mind 
passed from grief to happiness, and on whose account 
he was read}^ to undergo the perils of a courtly Ufa, 
were of course Edward Dyer and Fulke Greville. In 
the early part of the year 1579, Dyer appears to 
have been almost rivalHng Sidney in his success at 
Court. Greville had just returned from the political 
errand to the Continent on which he had started 
in company wdth Casimir. Coming by w^ay of Delft, 
where the Prince of Orange w^as lodging, he had an 
interview, in one respect memorable. To his visitor 
the Prince entrusted a message for Queen EHza- 
beth. He begged him to assure her of his very humble 
service, and to say that he craved leave of her freely to 
utter his knowledge and opinion of a fellow-servant of 
his, who lived unemployed under her. He had had 
much experience, he had seen various times and things 



* Marked in the margin, "Sir E. D. and M. F. G." 
t Dispraise of a Courtly Life. 



Atll] GREAT PRAISE FROM A GREAT MAN. 221 

and persons, but he protested that Her Majesty had 
in Mr. PhiHp Sidney one of the ripest and greatest 
statesmen that he knew of in all Europe. If Her 
Majesty would but try the young man, the Prince would 
stake his own credit on the issue of his friend's employ- 
ment about any business, either with the aUies, or with 
the enemies, of England.* 

This high opinion, coming from so great a man as 
William the Silent, is of real weight, and it is fully 
justified by the immediate sequel. Greville, heartily 
pleased at the good words he had heard concerning his 
friend, came home and told him what he was to repeat 
to the Queen. But Sidney, with proper dignity, forbade 
him to do it, saying that if Her 3Iajesty did not and 
could not reward him for what she herself knew, she 
had best not do it at all ; for the commendation of 
another could add nothing to his real deserts. f So, for 
some months more, Sidne}^ remained at Court without 
employment. 

It was while thus residing at Court, that he wrote a 
long letter to his brother Robert. For the chief part 
of a year Eobert had been on the Continent, pursuing, 
under the friendly eye of Languet, a course of study 
similar to that which Philip had followed when about 
as old. The letter, too valuable to be left unquoted, 
has no date, but it was evidently written in the year 
1579. 



^ Fiilke G:-eville, pp. 25—31 
t Ibid., p. 32. 



222 A MEMOIR OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. IChap vii. 



" My good Brother, 

" You have tliouglit it unkindness in me that I have not 
written oftcner unto you, and have desired that I should write unto 
you something of my opinion touching your travel ; you being per- 
suaded my experience thereunto be something which I must needs con- 
fess, but not as you take it. For you think my experience grows from 
the good things I have learned, but I know the only experience which 
I have gotten is, to find how much I might have learned, and how 
much indeed I have missed for want of directing my course to the 
right end and by the right means. I think you have read Aristotle's 
Ethics ; if you have, you know it is the beginning and foundation of 
all his works, the end to which every man doth and ought to bend his 
greatest and smallest actions. I am sure you have imprinted in your 
mind the scope and mark you mean by your pains to shoot at, for if 
you should travel but to travel, or to say you had travelled, certainly 
you should prove a pilgrim to no purpose. But I presume so weU of 
you, that though a great number of us never thought in ourselves why 
we went, but a certain tickling humour to do as other men had done, 
you purpose, being a gentleman born, to furnish yourself with the 
knowledge of such things as may be serviceable for your country and 
calling ; which certainly stands not in the change of air, for the warmest 
sun makes not a wise man, — no, nor in learning languages, although 
they be of serviceable use ; for words are but words in whatsoever 
language they be, — and much less in that all of us come home full of 
disguisements not only of apparel, but of our countenances, as though 
the credit of a traveller stood all upon his outside ; but in the right 
informing your mind with those things which are most notable in 
those places which you come unto. 

" Of which, as the one kind is so vain, as I think ere it be long, 
like the mountebank in Italy, we travellers shall be made sport of in 
comedies, so may I justly say, who rightly travels with the eye of 
Ulysses doth take one of the most excellent ways of worldly wisdom. 
For hard sure it is to know England, without you know it by com- 
paring it with some other country, no more than a man can know the 
swiftness of his horse without seeing him well matched. For you that 
are a logician know that, as greatness of itself is a quantity, so yet 
the judgment of it, as of mighty riches and all other strengths, stands 
in the predicament of relation ; so that you cannot tell what the Queen 
of England is able to do defensively or offensively, but through know- 



it 24.] THE WORTH OF WISE TRAVELLING. 223 

ing what tliey are able to do with whom she is to be matched. This, 
therefore, is one notable use of travellers, which stands in the mind 
and correlative knowledge of things ; in which kind comes in the 
knowledge of all leagues between prince and prince ; the topographical 
description of each country, how the one lies by situation to hurt or 
help the other, and how they are to the sea well harboured or not ; 
how stored with ships ; how with revenue ; how with fortifications and 
garrisons ; how the people, warlike, trained, or kept under, with 
many other such considerations, which as they confusedly come into 
my mind, so I for want of leisure hastily set them down. But these 
things, as I have said, are of the first kind which stands in the 
balancing one thing with the other. 

* ' The other kind of knowledge is of them which stand in the things 
which are in themselves either simply good or simply bad, and so 
serve for a right instruction or a shunning example. These Homer 
meant in this verse. Qui midtos hominitm mores cognovit et urhes : for 
he doth not mean by mores how to look or put ofi" one's cap with a 
new-found grace, although true beha^dour is not to be despised ; — 
marry, my heresy is that the English behaviour is best in England, 
and the Italian's in Italy. But mores he takes for that from whence 
Moral Philosophy is so called, the certainness of true discerning of 
men's minds both in virtue, passion, and vices. And when he saith 
cognovit urhes, he means not, if I be not deceived, to have seen towns, 
and marked their buildings ; for surely houses are but houses in every 
place ; they do but diflTer secundum magls et minus. But he attends 
to their religion, politics, laws, bringing up of children, discipline both 
for war and peace, and such like. These I take to be of the second 
kind, which are ever worthy to be known for their own sakes ; as 
surely, in the great Turk, though we have nothing to do with him, 
yet his discipline in war matters is, propter se, worthy to be known 
and learned. 

" N"ay, even in the kingdom of China, which is almost as far as the 
Antipodes from us, their good laws and customs are to be learned ; but 
to know their riches and power is of little purpose^ for us, since that 
can neither advance nor hinder us. But in our neighbour countries, 
both these things are to be marked, as well the latter, which contain 
things for themselves, as the former, which seek to know both those, 
and how their riches and power may be to us available, or otherwise. 
The countries fittest for both these are those you are going into. 
France is above all other most needful for us to mark, especially in 
the former kind ; next is Spain and the Low Countries ; then Ger- 



224 A MEMOIR OF SIR rillLIP SIDNEY. [Cn^p. VII. 

many, "which in my opinion excels all others as much in the latter 
consideration, as the other doth in the former. Yet neither are void 
of neither. For us, Germany, methinks, doth excel in good laws and 
well administering of justice ; so are we likewise to consider in it the 
many princes with whom we may have league, the places of trade, and 
means to draw both soldiers and furniture thence in time of need. 
So on the other side, as in France and Spain, we are principally to 
mark how they stand towards us both in power and inclination ; so 
are they not without good and fitting use, even in the generality of 
wisdom to be known. As in France, the Courts of Parliament, 
their subaltern jurisdiction, and their continual keeping of paid 
soldiers. In Spain, their good and grave proceedings, their keeping 
so many provinces under them, and by what manner, with the true 
points of honour ; wherein since they have the most open conceit, if 
they seem over-curious, it is an easy matter to cut off when a man 
sees the bottom. Flanders likewise, besides the neighbourhood with 
us, and the annexed considerations thereunto, hath divers things to 
be learned, especially their governing, their merchants, and other 
trades. Also for Italy, we know not what we have, or can have to 
do with them but to buy their silks and wines. And, as for the 
other point, except Venice, whose good laws and customs we can 
hardly proportion to ourselves, because they are quite of a contrary 
government ; there is little there but tyrannous oppression and 
servile yielding to them that have little or no right over them. And 
for the men you shall have there, although indeed some be ex- 
cellently learned, yet they are all given to counterfeit learning, as a 
man shall learn among them more false grounds of things than in 
any place else that I know, for, from a tapster upwards, they are all 
discoursers in certain matters and qualities, as horsemanship, weapons, 
painting (and such are better there than in other countries) ; but as 
for other matters, as well, if not better, you shall have them in 
nearer places. 

" Now resteth in my memory but this pomt, which indeed is the 
chief to you of all others ; which is the choice of what men you are 
to direct yourself to ; for it is certain no vessel can leave a worse 
taste in the liquor it contains, than a wrong teacher infects an 
unskilful hearer with that which hardly will ever out. I will not 
tell you some absurdities I have heard travellers tell. Taste him 
well, before you drink much of his doctrine. And when you have 
heard it, try well what you have heard before you hold it for a prin- 
ciple ; for one error is the mother of a thousand. But you may 



2^l''i^.] MORE TUAN A COUETIER. 225 

say, ' How shall I get excellent men to take pains to speak with me 1 ' 
Truly, in few words, either by mucli expense, or much humbleness."* 

In that letter there is evidence that the fascinations 
of a courtly life and the bad influence of the royal 
smile, ruinous to so many men of noble promise, Tvere 
in no measure depriving Philip Sidney of his natural 
manhness and intellectual vigour. 

* Instructions for Travellers, by Robert Earl of Essex, Sir Philip 
Sidney, and Secretary Davison (1633). 



CHAPTER VIII. 



LITERARY BEGINNINGS. 

1578—1579. 

At the time of Sidney's birth, a new period of 
Enghsh Hterature may be almost said to have com- 
menced. Spenser and Ealeigh, Lyly and Hooker, were 
born one or two years earUer ; Peele and Chapman 
two or three years later. Francis Bacon was Philip's 
junior by six years, Christopher Marlowe by nine, and 
William Shakespeare by ten. All were children to- 
gether, while society was witnessing the first crude 
evidence of that literary vigour which, perfected in 
them, was to make the age of Queen Elizabeth 
unrivalled in the history of intellectual energy. 
Sidney was two years old when the poems of Wyatt 
and Surrey, written long before, but then first pub- 
lished, set the fashion both of sonnet-making and of 
composition in blank-verse. He was four, when The 
Mirror of Magistrates, famous chiefly for Thomas 
Sackville's share in it, offered an example of the skilful 
writing of narrative poetry with which allegory was 
blended. He was seven, when the same Sackville gave its 
first offspring to Enghsh tragedy, by the performance 
before Queen Ehzabeth of his and Norton's play of 
Ferreon and Porre^, afterwards called Gorboduc. He 



Mt^n.] LITERARY TRAINING. 227 

was eight or nine when The ScJwolmaster was written 
by Eoger Ascham, his mother's friend and tutor. 

The years before and after the appearance of that 
model treatise, are notable for their richness in able 
works on learned themes, and it is to this class of 
literature that Philip seems to have given most heed in 
his youth. When he was fourteen Ascham died. But 
Ascham, living in his books and in the memory of 
friends, was the young man's guide, both in the subjects 
and in the method of his study. Zealously applying 
himself to the learning of languages, Sidney valued 
them, not for their own sakes, but as n'eedful stages to 
a proper understanding of philosophy and history. 
History he read, and enjoined his brother Robert to 
read, according to the plan indicated by the author of 
The Schoolmaster — "marking diligently the causes, 
counsels, acts, and issues in all great attempts ; in 
causes, what is just or unjust ; in counsels, what is 
purposed wisely or rashly ; in acts, what is done coura- 
geously or faintly ; and of every issue noting some 
general lesson of wisdom and wariness for like matters 
in time to come." "'^ And in pursuing philosophy, he 
followed the ways of the same wise teacher, caring 
little for Duns Scotus, "with all the rabble of bar- 
barous questionists,'' as Ascham had termed them, and 
mainly fixing his attention upon Plato and Aristotle. 
Declaring himself willing to learn Greek, if only for 
the sake of studying Aristotle's writings in Aristotle's 
words, he yet felt sympathy for the new Platonism, 

* Ascham, Report on fJie State of Germany, 

q2 



228 



A MEMOIR OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. fCnAr.vlir. 



and the stout arguments against Aristotelian doctrine, 
urged by Ramus. Eamus was one of the victims of 
the Massacre of Saint Bartholomew, and it is even 
possible that Philip met him in Paris. When three 
years later Banosius, a prominent theologian and philo- 
sopher of the day, translated his friend's Commentaries, 
and prefixed to them a life of the martyr, he promised 
a first copy of the book to Sidney, then only one-and- 
twenty, because, he said, of his fondness for its theme, 
and of his ability to make it known among English 
scholars.* 

Of these sorts, then, were Sidney's chief employ- 
ments in the world of letters up to the spring of 
1575, when, returning to England, he began life as a 
courtier. The business of the Court had too much 
newness and excitement for one who should persevere 
in abstruse studies ; but, in its own way, it furnished 
literary suggestion. In the masques and allegorical 
entertainments witnessed at Kenilworth, there was 
rough indication of the progress of the English drama. 
At Kenilworth Sidney met Thomas Sackfille, Lord 
Buckhurst, and many other courtiers w4io emulated 
the skill in writing for which Sackville was famous- 
There also he saw, and perhaps began a brief friend- 
ship with, George Gascoigne, a man of humbler 
birth, but a better poet, than any of the others. 
Gascoigne's pungent wit and dramatic vigour are, in 
our day, hardly sufficiently appreciated. He died in 
1577, before reaching his fiftieth year, leaving, besides 

* Britisli Museum, Additional MSS., 15,914, pp. 21, 28. 



^t 



sJfS. ] THE LADY OF THE MAY. 22:{) 



other works, a Steel-Glass, wherein were reflected both 
his own skill as a satirist and many of the vices of 
the time. 

That book, and most others that appeared in these 
years, w^ere doubtless read by Sidney. It is probable, 
moreover, that he ventured on many small composi- 
tions of his own, which have not survived, or of w^hich 
some, being songs and sonnets with no date assigned to 
them, may be mixed up with those which he after- 
wards wrote. But his first known work was a short 
masque, already mentioned, prepared in honour of Queen 
Ehzabeth's visit to Wanstead in the spring of 1578. 

Of this piece. The Lady of the May, the hterary 
merits are very slight. It is quite destitute of dra- 
matic power, and its verse shows none of the writer's 
later sweetness. Its subject is a quarrel, in the 
presence of Queen Elizabeth, between Therion, the 
champion of the huntsmen, and Espilus, the leader of 
the shepherds, as to which of them shall enjoy the love 
of the beautiful May-lady. After long strife of words, 
in which the several merits of forest and of pastoral 
employment are discussed, the Queen's decision is 
obtained in favour of Espilus and the race of shepherds. 

The Lady of the May contains some ridicule of the 
courtly wa^^s already growing very irksome to its 
author, longing for purer and larger exercise — and 
even some • well-conveyed play upon Elizabeth's taste 
for flattery. But the main feature of the work is 
its strong satire of the pedantic mode of speech then 
so much in use. Master Rhombus, the schoolmaster, 
who acts as spokesman, is prototype of Holofernes in 



230 A MEMOIR OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. [Chap.viii. 

Lovers Lahoiir Lost. " Now the thunder-thumping 
Jove/' is his first address to the Queen, "transfund 
his dotes into your excellent formosity, which have, 
with your resplendent beams, thus segregated the 
enmity of these rural animals. I am, potentissima 
domina, a schoolmaster, that is to say, a pedagogue, 
one not a little versed in the disciplinating of the 
juvenile fry, wherein, to my laud I say it, I use such 
geometrical proportion, as neither wanteth mansuetude 
nor correction ; for so it is described : — 

" Parcare subjectos, et debellire superbos. 

" Yet hath not the pulchritude of my virtues pro- 
tected me from the contaminating hands of these ple- 
beians ; for, coming solummodo to have parted their 
sanguinolent fray, they 3delded me no more reverence 
than if I had been some pecorius asimis, I, even I, 
that am — who am 1 1 Dim ; verbus sapiento satitm est. 
But what said that Trojan jEneas when he sojourned in 
the surging sulks of the sandiferous seas ? 

" Hsec olim memonasse juvebit. 

• 

" Well, well ; ad propositos reverteho. The purity of 
the verity is, that a certain pidcJira piiella profecto, 
elected and constituted, by the integrated determination 
of all this topographical region, as the sovereign lady 
of this Dame Maia's month, hath been qiiodammodo 
hunted, as you would say, pursued, by two, a brace, a 
couple, a cast of young men, to whom the crafty 
coward Cupid had, inquam, delivered his dire, dolorous 
dart.'' 



J5.^'2t] OUTLANDISH ENGLISH. 231 



iEt. 23, 



That single quotation is enough to show what Sidney 
thought of the affected pedantry of the day. His imita- 
tion, indeed, was hardly exaggerated. In the ^^itten 
and even spoken language of those who pretended to 
be the cleverest and wittiest, there was almost as much 
distortion of word and phrase. If the better sort 
made their far-fetched quotations from foreign writers 
grammatically, there were not a few ready to display 
ignorance, as great as that of Rhombus, of the languages 
they professed to know. Among educated and un- 
educated alike there was the same taste for large, 
loud-sounding and empty words, the same foolish re- 
dundance of alliteration. There is illustration of all 
this in the somewhat later writings of Lyly, Greene, 
and others ; but in them, the practices, though suffi- ^ 
ciently absurd, seem to have been softened down from 
Ijie still greater absurdities prevalent in the days of 
Sidney^s youth, and, fortunately, very scantily pre- 
served. When Hubert Languet visited London in the 
beginning of 1579, he noticed with surprise, almost 
with disgust, the affected speech and bearing of nearly 
every courtier. More than twenty years before, in 1554, 
Sidney's wise friend, Thomas Wilson, some time Dean 
of Durham, and subsequently joint Secretary of State 
with Sir Francis Walsingham, had made a memorable 
complaint in his Arte of Rhetor ique, almost the first 
piece of criticism which our language contains. " Some 
seek so far for outlandish English," he said, " that they 
forget altogether their mothers' language. And I dare 
swear this, if some of their mothers were alive, they 
were not able to tell what they say ; and yet these fine 



232 A MEMOIR OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. [C.iap.viii. 

English clerks will say they speak in their mother 
tongue, if a man should charge them with counter- 
feiting the King's Enghsh. Some far-journeyed gen- 
tlemen, at their return home, like as they love to go 
in foreign apparel, so they will ponder their talk with 
over-sea language. He that cometh lately out of 
France will talk French-English, and never blush at 
the matter. Another chops in with English Italianated, 
and applieth the Itahan phrase to our Enghsh speak- 
ing The fine courtier will talk nothing but 

Chaucer. The mystical wise men and poetical clerks 
will speak nothing but quaint proverbs and blind 
allegories, delighting much in their own darkness, espe- 
cially when none can tell what they do say. The 
unlearned, or foolish fantastical, that smells but of 
learning, such fellows as have seen learned men in 
their days, will so Latin their tongues that the simpje 
cannot but wonder at their talk, and think surely they 
speak by some revelation. I know them that think 
rhetoric to stand wholly upon dark words ; and he 
that can catch an inkhorn term by the tail, him they 
count a fine Englishman and a good rhetorician.^''" 

Sidney, as appears chiefly in some parts of his 
Arcadia, was not wholly free from the pernicious 
fashion of the day ; but he strove zealously against 
it, and the evidence of the strife, given in The Lady of 



* It was Wilson who strung together this caricature of the fashion- 
able alliteration of his day : " Pitiful poverty prayeth for a penny, but 
puffed presumption payeth not a point, pampering his paunch with 
pestilent pleasures, procuring his passport to post it to hell-pit, there 
to be punished with pain perpetual." 



ML 23.] FEIENDSHIP WITH GABRIEL HARYEY. 233 

the May, inclines us to look leniently upon the literary 
faults of the work. He had no talent for dramatic 
writing ; least of all was he able to write a play full 
of extravagant praise of the Queen, to whose vanity 
he had no incKnation to pander, alUiough glad to 
honour all that w^as good in her character. 

The masque was acted in May of 1578. In the 
following July, Sidney, accompanying the Court to 
Audley End, became the hero of a laudatory poem, 
composed by Gabriel Harvey,''' a native of Saffron 



* Gabrielis Harueij Gratulationum Valdinensium Libri Quatuor 
(Londini, anno 1578, mense Septembri), lib. iv. Part III. Ad Nohi- 
lissimum, Sumanissimiimque .luuenem, Philippum Sidnewm, mihi 
multis nominibus longe charissimum. For the sake of its personal 
allusions to Sidney, and its evidence of tbe high, place which he already 
held in the esteem of learned men, the first part of the address is worth 
quoting : — 

" Ten^ ego, te solum taceam, Prssclare Philippe, 

Quemque aUre gentes, quemque ora externa loquuntur ? 
Non faciam, non si cerebrum mihi Pallas obumbret, 
Non sensus, mihi si Phoebus contundat acutos, 
Et siluisse aliquando velit, qui multa locutus 
Tandem etiam a musis, et ApoUine deseror omni. 
Si nihil est, laudabo genus ; laudabo Mineruam ; 
Laudabo ingenium ; mores laudabo venustos ; 
Ingenuas laudabo artes ; dicamque, JVIinerua 
Propitia puerum didicisse fideliter illas. 
Ecquis cum minus optatum, gratumque venire 
Crediderit cuiquam ; qui talibus ornamentis 
Venerit^excultus, talique incedet amictu ? 
At tua sunt privata magis Preeconia : Te, te 
Gallica nobilitas ; te, te Germanica valde 
Admirata fuit ; te, te nouus iuduperator 
Mirifice coluit (celebris Legatio multum 
Addiderat decoris) ; tam forti pectore, tanto 
Indicio, tam spectata virtute refertum, 



234 A MEMOIR OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. [Cbai.. viir. 

"Waldon, and a life-long student at Cambridge, where 
he Avas famous as a teacher of classical and theological 
literature. Harvey was on terms of intimacy with Lan- 
guet, Henry Stephens, and other continental scholars. 
I infer that it was one of these men who introduced 
him to Sidney, and that the acquaintance began in this 
summer of 1578. Well worth knowing for his own 
strength of mind and goodness of heart, Harvey never 
did better service to Sidney than in making him the 
friend of his sometime pupil and life-long associate, 
Edmund Spenser. 



Tot Uteris luiienem : Stepliamis tibi multa trophaea 
Ingenii statuit ; Languetus plura ; sed vnus 
Plurima Banosius, niueo signanda lapillo ; 
Banosius, pars magna animi, bona portio nostri. 
Quid minim, si te stupeat Britannica pubes ; 
Aula probet ; faueat Princeps ; utrunque Lycseum 
Delitias inter foueat ; Respublica tota 
Amplectatur, amet, miretur, laude celebret ? 
Sic STiperi voluere ; boni, nimiumque benigni 
Sic superi voluere ; Anglis miracula semper 
Esse aliqua, in qnibus emineat virtiisque, fidesque, 
Relligioqiie, artesque omnes, cunctiqne lepores : 
In quibus ipsse habitent musae, dominetur Apollo ; 
Et cbarites, veneresque insint ; regnetque Minerua, 
Mercuriusque suas vires, Pandora suasque 
Exerat ; atque Themis, Facundiaque ipsa, bonique 
Quotquot iibique adsunt. Genii sua numera iactent. 
Quos digitis monstret populus ; digndsque triumpLis 
Tergeminis statuat ; sertisque, et honoribus omet 
Omnigenis, summumque adeo super setliera tollat. 
Hos inter, siquis primas, memorande Philippe, 
Attribuat tibi, cui superi bona cuncta dedeie 
Corporis, ingenii, naturse, fortunseque ; 
!N^se prseclare ilium facere, ac sentire putabo, 
Indicioque eius nitetur nostra Thalia. 



jEt^f] FRIENDSHIP WITH EDMUXD SPEXSER. 235 

Spenser was now about twenty-five years old. A 
native of East Smithfield, he had spent seven years at 
Cambridge, studying all the learning of the day, and 
training himself especially in the composition of poetry. 
In June, 1576, he took his master's degree, and soon 
afterwards, having to earn his living, he went to 
the north of England, as tutor in a friend's family. 
While thus employed, he fell in love, and grief at his 
mistress's cruel sport with his affection, we are told, 

Fortiinata Donms, cui talia pignora ; foelix 

Et Pater, et Mater, Sidneionimque propago 

Integra ; ter foelix, ter foelicissimus ipse, 

Quique domiim, patremque omas, matremque, genusqiie. 

Sic florens, Sidneie, diu : tua gloria crescat 

Quotidie magfe, atque magis : praeconia semper # 

Yel noua, vel maiora tibi cumulentur : liouores 

Accidant insperati : spes altra voceris 

SiDXEii decoiis ; spes altera Yaruiciani 

Nominis (6 yiuat, sed viuat Auunctdus) ; altra 

Leicestri quoque splendoris (sed Auimculus, 6 sed 

Viuat in eeternum) ; Prseclare Philippe, voceris. 

Teqne omnes reputent Sidneii, Dudleioqne 

Stemmate, gente, domo, decore, amplitudine digimm. 

Principiis nihil est illustrius ; vltima primis 

Si paria exstiterint (sed erunt sequalia ; Phoebus 

Maiora, inquit, erunt ; spondetque amplissima quseque 

Yeridicus Vates) ; Deus, 6 Deus optime, quantum 

Fulgorem adjicies patriis Laribusque, domoque ; 

Nobilitati etiam, maiestatique Britannae ? 

Quae mea de tantis spes est ter maxima spebus. 

Crede mihi, tua me sic afficit inclyta virtus, 

Ut quiduis sperare queam, prieter o mni a summa. 

voti compos fiam, Sidneiaque ubique 

Laus voUtet, celsumque feratur ad sethera siursam 

Plura aliks : nunc musa iubet defessa tacere : 

Xalpe aliis dixi: tibi dico xa^P^j Yale'que." 

Lib. iv. pp. 15 — 17. 



236 A MEMOIR OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. [Cbap. viii 

led him to write llie Shepheard's Calender. But he 
was too earnest a man to be satisfied with writins: a 
mere love-poem. As the work progressed, love was 
almost forgotten, and the verse became a means of high 
moral and religious teaching. Of this change it is 
probable that Sidney was in some measure and indi- 
rectly the cause. 

Within a month or two of his meeting with Philip 
at Saffron Waldon, we find Harvey recommending 
Spenser to quit the barren north, and seek his fortunes 
in the more fruitful south ; and when next we meet 
the poet he is at Penshurst, on intimate terms with its 
inmates. There can be no doubt that Harvey had 
sent him to Sidney, and that Sidney, in quick, warm 
friendship, had invited him to stay at the family man- 
sion, whither, though chiefly residing at Court, he often 
came on one errand or another. 

The friendship was very memorable. From it there 
ensued to Spenser large help in the exercise of his 
genius, and a chief part of the shght worldly advance- 
ment that came to him. It furnished Sidney with a 
very strong inducement to devote himself to letters 
more heartily than he had ever done before, and pro- 
vided him with the best possible counsellor and fellow- 
student. 

The Sheplieard's Calender was completed during the 
early months of 1579, and published anonymously in 
April, with dedication to " the noble and virtuous gen- 
tleman, most worthy of all titles, both of learning and 
chivalry, Master Philip Sidney : — 



2Et'2i.'] -^ ^^^^ SCHOOL OP POETPvY. 237 

" Go, little book ! thyself present, 
As child Yrhose parent is unkent, 
To him that is the president 
Of nobleness and chivalry ; 
And if that envy bark at thee, 
As sure it will, for succour flee 
Under the shadow of his wing ; 
And, asked who thee forth did bring, 
A shepherd's swain, say, did thee sing, 
All as his straying flock he fed ; 
And wh£n his honour has thee read. 
Crave pardon for thy hardihead." 

That was the first pubUc avowal of Spenser's debt to 
Sidney as his patron. The first fruit of their Hterary 
friendship is worth noting. In company with Gabriel 
Harvey, Edward Dyer, Fulke Greville, and others of 
Sidney's courtly friends, they established a sort of club 
— an Areopagus, as Spenser called it '"' — intended for 
the formation of a new school of poetry. From the 
fragments of information extant, it is not possible to 
arrive at a full knowledge of its object and method* 
but what we do know is very curious. Sidney appears 
to have been its president, while Spenser, still young 
and inexperienced, was most vigorous in the enforce- 
ment of its rules, and Harvey, an older man than the 
others, gave counsel and encouragement by letter. " I 
like your Dreams passingly well," he said, in one com- 
munication to Spenser, respecting some verses not now 
extant ; " the rather because they savour of that sin- 
gular and extraordinary vein and invention which I 



* Haslewood, Ancient Critical Essays upon English Poets and Poesie, 
(1818), vol. ii. p. 288. 



238 A MEMOIR OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. [CnAP.Yiil. 

ever fancied most, and in a manner admired only, in 
Lucian, Petrarch, Aretino, and all the most delicate 
and fine-conceited Grecians and Italians (for the 
Romans, to speak of, are but very ciphers in this kind), 
whose chief endeavour and drift was to have nothing 
vulgar^ but, in some respect or other, and especially in 
lively hyperbohcal amplifications, rare, quaint, and odd 
in every point ; and, as a man would say, a degree or 
two at the least above the reach and compass of a 
common scholar's capacity. In which respect, notwith- 
standing, as well for the regularity as the divinity of 
the matter, I heard once a divine prefer Saint John's 
Revelation before all the veriest metaphysical visions 
and j oiliest conceited dreams or ecstacies that ever 
were devised by one or other, how admirable or super- 
excellent soever they seemed otherwise to the world. 
And truly I am so confirmed in this opinion, that when 
I bethink me of the very notablest and most wonderful 
prophetical or poetical vision that ever I read or heard, 
me seemeth the proportion is so unequal that there 
hardly appearetli any semblance of comparison ; no 
more in a manner, specially for poets, than doth 
between the incomprehensible wisdom of God and the 
sensible wit of man." '^ 

The making it a rule to seek the most rare, quaint, 
and odd hyperbolical amplifications, as far as possible 
above the understanding of even ordinary scholars, 
much more of common folk, was not a very commend- 
able undertaking. But this was not enough. Speaking 

* HaslcwooJ, vol. ii. p. 275. 



Ml'L] ^ ^^EAY SCHOOL OF POETEY. 239 

of Sidney and Dyer, Spenser said in a letter which he 
wrote to Harve3^on the 16th of October, 1579, " and now 
they have proclaimed in their apetwTrayw a general sur- 
ceasing and silence of bald rhymers, and also of the 
very best, too ; instead whereof they have, by authority 
of their whole senate, prescribed certain laws and rules 
of quantities of English syllables for English verse/^ * 

In this unwise proceeding, Harvey claimed to be 
the leader. Long before, he had besought Spenser to 
abandon cumbrous rhyme, for pure classical rhythm, 
and he had written some Satirical Verses, which, we 
are told, had won the great good-liking and estimation 
of Edward Dyer, and inclined Spenser to write a long 
poem in the same measure.f The rules for versification 
appear to have been compiled by Sidney, on the basis 
of some already laid down by Drant, and then to have 
been collated with certain original ones of Harney's 
preparation.^ In clearly defined and rigidly pursued 
ways, the various classical metres were adopted wdth 
some modifications, and often with a steady observance 
of the law of incomprehensibility. Thus Sidney set a 
shepherd to make love in hexameters : — - 

" Lady, reserved by the heavens to do pastor's company honour, 
Joining your sweet voice to the rural muse of a desert, 
Here you fully do find the strange operation of love. 
How to the woods love runs, as well as rides to the palace ; 
Neither he bears reverence to a prince nor pity to a beggar, 
But, like a point in the midst of a circle, is still of a nearness, 
All to a lesson he draws ; neither hills nor caves can avoid him. "§ 

* Ibid. p. 288. 
t Ibid. p. 261. 
I Ibid. p. 260. 
§ Arcadia (ed. of 1655), p. 79. 



240 A MEMOIR OF SIR PIIILIP SIDNEY. ICiapVIII. 

And in this way Nash tells us that Harvey *' came 
very short but yet sharp upon my Lord of Oxford, in a 
ratthng bundle of EngUsh hexameters": — 

*' Strait to tlie back, like a shirt ; and close to the breech like a 
diveling ; 
A little apish hat, couched fast to the pate, like au oyster ; 
French cambric ruffs, deep Avith a witness, starched to the purpose : 
Delicate in speech ; quaint in array ; conceited in all points ; 
In courtly guiles, a passing singular odd man." * 

After this fashion, moreover, Spenser shaped a lover's 
woes in iambics : — 

" Unhappy verse I the witness of my unhappy state, 
Make thyself fluttering wings of thy fast flying- 
Thought, and fly forth unto my love wheresoever she be, 

" Whether lying restless on heavy bed, or else 
Sitting so cheerless at the cheerful board, or else 
Playing alone, careless, on her heavenly virginals. 

" If in bed, tell her that my eyes can take no rest ; 
If at board, tell her that my mouth can eat no meat ; 
If at her virginals, tell her I can bear no mirth. 

" Tell her that her pleasures were wont to lull me asleep ; 
Tell her that her beauty was wont to feed mine eyes ; 
Tell her that her sweet tongue was wont to make me mix'th. 

'' N"ow do I nightly waste, wanting my kindly rest ; 
1^0 w do I daily starve, wanting my lively food ; 
Now do I always die, wanting my timely mirth." t 

To Sidney's shepherd, again, sapphic verses of this 
sort were addressed : 

" If mine eyes can speak to do hearty errand, 
Or mine eyes' language she do hap to judge of, 
So that eyes' message be of her received, 

Hope we do yet live. 

* Haslewood, vol. ii. p. 2G9. 
t Ibid. pp. 289, 290. 



if 24. ] A NEW SCHOOL OF POETEY. 241 

" But if eyes fail then, wlieii I most do need them, 
Or if eyes' language be not unto her known, 
So that eyes' message do return rejected, 

Hope we do both die. 
' ' Yet dying and dead, do we pay her honom- ; 
So becomes our tomb a monument of her praise ; 
So becomes our loss the triumph of her gain. 

Hers be the glory, 
" If the spheres senseless do yet hold a music. 
If the swan's sweet voice be not heard but at death. 
If the mute timber, when it hath the life lost, 

Yieldeth a lute's tune." * 
# 

But I have quoted enough in illustration of the strange 
freak which, through love of novelty, was indulged in 
by so many sensible men, especially by a critic so dis- 
criminating as Sidney, and a poet so exquisite as Spenser. 
Even a far weaker man than Nash might have told 
them, that though the hexameter verse, or any other 
classical measure, " be a gentleman of an ancient house, 
yet this chme of ours he cannot thrive in. Our speech 
is too craggy for him to set his plough in. He goes 
twitching and hopping in our language like a man 
running upon quagmires, up the hill in one syllable and 
down the dale in another ; retaining no part of that 
stately, smooth gait, which he vaunts himself with 
amongst the Greeks and Latins." f Sidney and Spenser, 
indeed, found out, before Nash had time to tell them, 
that such productions stumbled, according to Spenser's 
phrase, " either Hke a lame gosling that draweth one 
leg after, or like a lame dog that holdeth one leg up.'^ 
But many others of the school were not so prompt in 

* Arcadia, p. 78. 

t Todd, Account of Spenser, p. xviii. 



242 A MEMOIR OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. [Chap. Vlil. 

discerning their mistake. When Gabriel Harvey saw 
that his especial friend was turning from tliis idle 
exercise, to work out the noblest of all poetical alle- 
gories, he wrote, " If so be the Faerie Queene be fairer 
in your eye than the IS^ine Muses, and Hobgoblin run 
away with the garland from Apollo, mark what I 
say — and yet I will not say that I thought ; but there, 
an end for this once, and fare you well till God or some 
good angel put you in a better mind."'^ Yet even this 
crabbed critic in time conceded his pointy and acknow- 
ledged that his friend's choice of style was a right 
one. 

Of Sidney's connection with the Areopagus we hear 
nothing after the autumn of 1579, although there is 
token, in some of the poems inserted in The Arcadia, 
that his mistaken views about versification were not 
entirely lost even two years later. As a poet, he never, 
save in one or two short pieces, rose to very great ex- 
cellence. In the world of letters, he is chiefly to be 
praised for the vigour and beauty of his prose- writings ; 
and up to his twenty-ninth year, we have no trace of 
any longer or more ambitious composition than the 
letters and official documents of which we have read 
some passages. He was still a courtier rather than an 
author, and presently there arose court-troubles suffi- 
cient to engage all his whole thoughts for some time to 
come. 

* Haslewood, vol. ii. p. 276. 



CHAPTER IX. 



UNDER THE ROYAL FROWN. 

1579—1580. 

1^ 1579 the Duke of Alen^on, who, upon his 
brother Henry's accession to the French throne, 
became Duke of Anjou, renewed his suit for the hand 
of Queen EKzabeth. The massacre of Saint Bartholo- 
mew, which had formerly stood in his way, was now in 
some measure forgotten, and his recent proceedings in 
the Netherlands, while giving evidence to all keen-eyed 
men of the Duke's folly and baseness, served to dazzle 
careless observation. There was a party in Holland 
which ventured to regard him, in opposition to William 
of Orange, as the champion of the liberal cause, and in 
England some were ready to speak his praise. Of his 
claims, both upon Europe and upon herself, the Queen 
thought favourably. Early in the year, we are told 
his agent, Du Simiers, received such good usage, that 
he held conference with Her Majesty three or four 
times a week.* When in August he returned from 
a visit to his master, bringing fresh messages and 
requests, Du Simiers was still more kindly treated. f 

* Lodge, Illustrations (ed. 1796), vol. ii. p, 201. 
t State Paper Office MSS. Domestic Correspondence, Elizabeth, 
vol. cxxxi. No. 154. 

R 2 



244 A MEMOIR OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. [Chap. ix. 

His arguments and compliments being uttered in the 
artful, fascinating way for which he was famous, his 
success seemed likely. All who objected to the match, 
therefore, took active measures for resisting it. And at 
Court the Earl of Leicester, and his nephew, Philip 
Sidney, were the chief opponents. 

Leicester's tactics were in keeping. with his character. 
Giving encouragement to a foolish report, that by 
incantations and love-potions the Queen was being 
drawn into the accursed union, h^ sought to 
strengthen his party ; while to the Queen herself he 
used the most winning eloquence at his command. 
His arguments were made futile, however, by the 
French agent's discovery and exposure of Leicester's 
secret marriage with the Countess of Essex. To 
Elizabeth that intelligence was not welcome. Un- 
willing that the gay flatterer should marry any one, 
she was especially displeased that her haughty cousin, 
Letitia, should be his bride. She refused to hsten to 
his persuasions against her own marriage project, or 
even to admit him to .her presence. According to one 
authority, she sent him to Greenwich Castle, with 
orders not to stir thence without her leave ; ''^ accord- 
ing to another, he voluntarily shut himself up in his 
own abode, on pretence of being seriously ill. f 

Sidney's mode of resistance differed altogether from 
that of his uncle. Having no personal interest in the 
matter — except that he, with all others of the Court, 



* Camden, Annales (ed. 1717), p. 329. 
t Fulke Greville, p. 71. 



Atli ] QUEEN Elizabeth's marriage project. 245 

disliked the prospect of a crowding of French nobles 
into the Queen's presence — he rested his arguments 
solely upon constitutional and patriotic grounds. 
Between Elizabeth and her suitor, he said, there were 
differences of years, of person, of education, of estate, 
and of religion, each by itself a sufficient reason against 
the marria^. Nearly twenty years younger than Her 
Majesty, ugly and ignorant, the Duke could bring no 
sort of happiness to the Queen. To the State he could 
bring nothing but mischief. By his Jesuitical policy, 
and his hcentious conduct, he would undermine all the 
battlements which its reformers had set round the 
EngHsh Church ; " fashioning atheism among her sub- 
jects, as knowing that in confusion of thought he might 
more easily raise up superstitious idolatry." By mis- 
guiding public affairs, and weakening ancient customs 
and statutes, by lifting monarchy out of its proper 
legal circles, " by banishing all free spirits and faithful 
patriots with a kind of shadowed ostracism, till the 
MesiS of native freedom should be utterly forgotten," he 
would ruin all the sturdy politics and social liberty of 
England. By destroying all its present relations with 
foreign countries, whether commercial or political, to 
the great aggrandizement of France, and to the 
evident damaging of every free state, especially of the 
Netherlands, he would grievously retard the welfare, 
not only of England, but of all the world. " Besides," 
says the friend who has given us a detailed report of 
Sidney's arguments, " in the practice of this marriage, 
he foresaw and prophesied that the very first breach of 
God's ordinance, matching herself with a prince of 



246 A MEMOIR OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. fCnAP. IX. 

adverse faith, would infallibly carry with it some piece 
of the rending destiny which Solomon and those other 
princes justly felt for having ventured to weigh the 
immortal wisdom in even scales with mortal con- 
veniency or inconveniency." '' 

The Queen was in no mood to be pleased with such 
blunt utterance of loyalty. Those speeches only were 
acceptable to her which contained praise of the Duke of 
Anjou ; and because the Earl of Oxford, belonging to 
no party, and having no principles save one of self- 
advancement, was loudest in his adulation, he rose just 
now to a very high place in the royal favour. Sidney 
had never been on friendly terms with the Earl. He 
heartily disliked his foppery, arrogance, and villainy ; 

* Fulke Greville, Life, pp. 53 — 71. Far away from the Court the 
matter was also talked of very earnestly, and doubtless much more 
freely than was possible in the neighbourhood of the palace. The 
temper of multitudes was expressed in a pamphlet which appeared 
about the 1st of September, with the title " The Discovery of the 
Gaping Gulf, whereinto England is like to he swallowed, by a French 
marriage, if the Lord forbid not the Banns, by letting Her Majesty see 
the Sin and Punishment thereof ^^ Such plain-spoken opinion was by 
no means to the Queen's taste. On the 7th of September a Proclam- 
ation was issued, forbidding the sale of the " lewd and seditious book," 
and calling in all the copies already purchased, t Its Puritan author, 
Stubbs, a barrister of Lincoln's Inn, and its printer. Page, were appre- 
hended and prosecuted by royal order. Each was condemned to lose 
his right hand. Stubbs, who first received punishment, as soon as it 
was over, took off his hat with the hand remaining to him, and waving 
it over his head, shouted, "God save the Queen ! " Page, immediately 
that his sentence had been executed, pointed with his left hand to its 
bleeding fellow upon the ground and exclaimed, " There lies the hand 
of a true Englishman ! " 

t State Paper Office MSS. Domestic Correspondence, Elizabeth, 
vol. cxxxii. No. 11. 



JEt'li. ] IN DISPUTE WITH AN EAEL. 247 

and by his present line of conduct he was especially 
aggrieved. When an occasion arose by which he could 
avow his indignation, and break the slender intercourse 
which, as fellow-courtiers, had hitherto been observed 
between them, he seems to have been w^ell pleased. 

This happened near the end of September.* Sidney, 
it seems, was one day playing at tennis, when the Earl 
entered the place, and haughtily, as he thought be- 
came one who was great by birth, greater by alliance, 
and greatest by his present possession of the Queen's 
good-will, claimed to share in the game. Sidney, not 
liking that mode of address, at first took no notice of 
the intrusion. "When he did speak, it was only to use 
such dignified words — " coming," we are told, " from an 
understanding that knew what was due to itself and 
what it owed to others," — that his rival felt himself 
reproved, and was proportionately enraged. After 
further talk, rough and impertinent, he so far forgot 
himself as to command the whole party of players to 
leave the tennis court. Sidney bluntly refused. " Had 
his Lordship chosen," he said, " to express himself in 
courteous terms, he would have been met with courtesy, 
but he would find that they were not the men to be 
moved by any scourge of his fury." "Puppy!" ex- 
claimed the Earl so angrily and loudly that the 
courtiers outside, having already heard something of 
the dispute, rushed in to witness it. Among them 
came Du Simiers and the French Commissioners, with 
whom Oxford was especially intimate. Philip, seeing 

* Langueti Epistolce, p. 238. 



248 A MEMOIR OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. TChap. IX. 

that he was virtually placed in opposition, not so much 
to one conceited man as to a great faction in the Court, 
determined bravely to fight out the battle. In the 
firm deliberate tone which he had used throughout, 
though now with rising anger, he asked the Earl what 
he had just called him. " A puppy !" repeated Oxford. 
" That," said Sidney, " is a lie 1 " He listened for the 
only answer which a man of honour then could make ; 
but none came. He therefore walked out of the court, 
saying, as he went, that this was a business which had 
better be decided in a more private place. Oxford did 
not follow him. To the astonishment of all but his 
closest partizans, and with no advantage to his reputa- 
tion, he blustered forth something about having gained 
his point in being rid of the fellow, and thereupon pro- 
ceeded to his game of tennis. 

For a whole day Sidney waited for the message 
which he expected and desired. None arriving, he 
sent a gentleman to ask whether he should hear from 
the Earl, and to say that this was a state of affairs in 
which his Lordship's French companions could teach 
him, if he did not know, what was the only honourable 
thing for him to do. Thus provoked, Oxford sent back 
the challenge. But the time for fighting was over. 
The matter had been brought before the Lords of the 
Council ; and they, not content with enjoining peace 
between the young men, besought the Queen herself to 
effect a reconciHation. 

Elizabeth, loth to find fault with the courtier whom, 
notwithstanding his boldness towards her, she yet 
heartily admired, but determined to shelter the reigning 



mTmJ ^^ DISPUTE WITH Al^ EAEL. 249 

favourite, sent for Sidney, and urged him to apologize. 
She pointed out the difference in degree between earls 
and gentlemen, and talked much about the respect 
which inferiors owed to their superiors, and the risk, 
if the gentry used boldness with the nobility, that the 
peasantry would lay insult upon both. 

Sidney's answer was respectful and dignified. A 
peerage, he said, was never intended to be a pri- 
vilege to do wrong — witness the Queen herself, who, 
however queenly she might be by office, birth, educa- 
tion, and nature, was content to follow the same line of 
conduct as that of her subjects, and to secure all her 
rights by obeying their laws. He reminded her that 
though the Earl of Oxford Avas a great lord by his own 
family and her good favour, yet he was no lord over 
him. King Henry the Eighth, he added, had given 
to the gentry the right of free and unreserved appeal 
against the overbearing spirit of the grandees, thinking 
it necessary to the welfare of the State that the hum- 
bler part of the nation should keep down those whose 
rank inclined them to be pompous and presump- 
tuous."' 

Not even the Queen's arguments could induce Sidney 
to remove one step from what he felt to be the only 
dignified ground. But, as his rival chose, in a cowardly 
way, to hide himself under Elizabeth's favour, he could 
do nothing. He had fully established his own credit 
by publicly resenting the insult that had been put upon 
him, by challenging the Earl to clear himself, and by 

* Fulke Greville, Life, pp. 74—81. 



250 A MEMOIR OF SIR PHILir SIDNEY. I Chap. IX. 

maintcaiiiing, before the Queen, his right to such straight- 
forward conduct. 

The quarrel, however, did not end there. Not hking 
the contempt which he had brought upon himself, yet 
not brave enough to win back the world's esteem, either 
by courtly defiance, or by manly apology, the Earl of 
Oxford is said to have hit upon a characteristic mode of 
retaliation, one which he considered to be "a safe 
course.'' If we may trust reports which we have from 
Philip, Earl of Arundel, his brother, Lord Henry 
Howard, and some other members of the party op- 
posed to Oxford, he planned the secret murder of his 
antagonist. After much delay, he sent a messenger 
to Sidney, asking that their disagreement might be 
honourably ended, and received a very glad assent to 
the proposal. Thereby suspicion was removed from 
him, and opportunity given for a treacherous project. 
Under cover of the night he was to visit Sidney's 
residence, probably the house at Paul's Wharf, there 
to kill him, as he lay asleep in bed, and then to 
make his own escape by a barge which was to be in 
waiting.* The story, openly told within two years of 
the alleged occurrence, is so remarkable, that I hesitate 
to accept it, although, both in its wildness and in its 
wickedness, it sorts well with known instances of the 
Earl of Oxford's villainy. If planned, however, the 
scheme w^as not sufficiently " safe " to be acted upon. 
Sidney lived to do noble w^ork for his country. 

* State Paper Office, MSS. Domestic Correspondence, Elizabeth, 
vol. cli. Nos. 45 and 57. 



1579. 

iEt. 



04] THE ISSUE OF THE DISPUTE. 251 



Bj reason of its political associations, this dispute of 
Sidney's, insignificant in itself, appears to have acquired 
an European notoriety. Languet heard of it from 
various sources,""' and he wrote to tell of the very great 
pain which it caused him. " I know," he said, " that 
by a habit inveterate in all Christendom, a man of 
honour is disgraced if he resent not an injury of this 
sort ; but I think it very unfortunate, although no blame 
can be set upon you, that you were led into this quarrel. 
No true glory can come of it, even if it give you room 
to display your courage. A virtue like yours needs a 
different theatre to play upon."f Prince Casimir sent 
to offer all the assistance in his power, towards bringing 
the dispute to a safe ending.^ 

Sidney's conduct was considered to be not so much 
a bearding of Oxford, as a defiance of the whole French 
party, of which Oxford was a leader. In that light 
he himself regarded it. 

From this time we see him taking bolder ground 
than he had held before with reference to the Queen's 
projected marriage. It was really dangerous ground. 
He could not hope to retain much of the Queen's favour 
if in such a matter he persisted in thwarting her. 
She forgave him for his plain speech about Oxford, but 
she could not fail to be displeased if he spoke as plainly 
about herself Although so far satisfied with his conduct 
as to accept from him, on the first day of 1580, a present 



* Langueti EjpistolcB, pp. 238, 242. 
t Ibid., p. 239. 



252 A MEMOIR OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. fCHAP. ix. 

of a crystal cup, * it is clear that Her Majesty was 
growing angry. The royal smile, under which Sidney 
had been constrained to live listlessly for more than 
two years, was now giving place to a frown which, 
notwithstanding all its attendant disasters, helped him 
to enter upon a new and very noble field of work. 

The immediate cause of this change was a letter 
written by Sidney to Queen EHzabetli, just before or 
just after the beginning of the new year. In conver- 
sation with her he had already, in general terms and at 
odd times, specified some of his reasons for opposing her 
alliance with Anjou ; but now he determined to sit down 
and prepare a final and complete protest against it. He 
did this, however, not solely on his own responsibility. 
He was instructed, we are told, by those whom he was 
bound to obey,t probably by his father, his friend 
Walsingham, and others who knew his great skill in 
writing, and who trusted much to the force of his argu- 
ments. To have taken such a step without advice 
would have been, as Languet rightly said, inconsistent 
with his natural modesty ; | but we may believe that, 
when urged to do the perilous work, he very readily 
undertook it. This he felt to be a cause in which he 
could not hold back ; and, wearied of his long-con- 
strained courtly idleness, he was doubtless eager to do 
anything in which he could feel that he was labouring 
for an end really worth struggling after. Be this as 
it may, he penned a long and elaborate document, 

* JSTicliols, Royal Progresses, vol. ii. p. 290. 
t Langueti EpistolcB, p. 285. 
X Ibid., p. 284. 



iit!^25. ] I^ ARGUMENT WITH QUEEN ELIZABETH. 253 

hardly more indicative of his brave and honest thought 
than of his great skill in writing. It opened thus : — 

" Most feared and beloved, most sweet and gracious 
Sovereign, 

" To seek out excuses of tliis my boldness, and to arm 
the acknowledging of a fault with reasons for it, might better show I 
knew I did amiss than any way diminish the attempt, — especially in 
your judgment, who being able to discern lively into the nature of 
the thing done, it were folly to hope, by laying on better colours, to 
make it more acceptable. Therefore, carrying no other olive branch 
of intercession than the laying of myself at your feet, nor no other 
insinuation either for attention or for pardon, but the true vowed 
sacrifice of unfeigned love, I will, in simple direct terms (as hoping 
they shall only come to your merciful eyes), set down the overflowing 
of my mind in this important matter, importing, as I think, the con- 
tinuance of your safety, and, as I know, the joys of my life." 

Of the proposed marriage, Sidney proceeded to say 
that the good and evil that would come by it must be 
considered both in relation to the Queen's estate and to 
her person. 

As for her estate, what could be better than that 
which she enjoyed at present, in being an absolute 
Princess, ruling over a prosperous kingdom ? And 
though now there was healthy national life, yet the 
state was so situated that any violent and sudden change, 
such as this marriage would bring about, could not but 
be attended with great hazard. 

" Your inward force consisteth in your subjects, generally unexpert in 
warlike defence. And as they are divided now into mighty factions 
(and factions bound on the never-dying knot of religion), with one of 
them, — to whom your happy government hath granted the free exer- 
cise of the eternal truth ; with this, by the continuance of time, by 
. the multitude of them, by the principal ofBces and strength they hold. 



254 A MEMOIR OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. [Chap. IX. 

and, lastly, by your dealings both at home and abroad against the 
adverse party, — your state is so entrapped as it were impossible for 
you, without excessive trouble, to pull yourself out of the party so 
long maintained. For such a course, once taken in hand, is not much 
unlike a ship in a tempest, which however dangerously soever it may 
be beaten with waves, yet is there no safety or succour without it. 
These [Protestants], therefore, as their souls live by your happy 

government, so are they your chief, if not your sole, strength 

How theii- hearts will be galled, if not aliened, when they shall see 
you take a husband a Frenchman and a Papist, in whom (howsoever 
fine wits may find farther dealings or painted excuses) the very com- 
mon people will know this, that he is the son of a Jezebel of our 
age,* — that his brother made oblation of his own sister's marriage, the 
easier to make massacres of our brethren in belief — that he himself, 
contrary to his promise and all gratefulness, having his liberty and 
principal estate by the Huguenots' means, did sack La Charite',t and 
utterly spoil them with fire and sword ! This, I say, even at first 
sight, gives occasion to all truly religious to abhor such a master, and 
consequently to diminish much of the hopeful love they have long 
held to you. 

" The other faction, most rightly indeed to be called a faction, is 
the Papists ; men whose spirits are full of anguish, some being infected 
by others whom they accounted damnable, some having their ambition 
stopped because they are not in the way of advancement, some in 
prison and disgrace, some whose best friends are banished practisers, 
many thinking you are an usurper, many thinking also you had dis- 
annulled your right because of the Pope's excommunication, all 
burthened with the weight of their conscience ; men of great numbers, 
of great riches, because the affairs of State have not lain on them ; of 
united minds, as all men that deem themselves oppressed naturally 
are. With these I would willingly join all discontented persons, such 
as want and disgrace keep lower than they have set their hearts, such 
as have resolved what to look for at your hands, such as Caesar said 
quibus opus est hello civili, and are of his mind, Malo in acie quam inforo 
cadere. These be men so much the more to be doubted, because, as 
they do embrace all estates, so are they commonly of the bravest and 
wakefuUest sort and that know the advantage of the world most. 
This double rank of people, how their minds have stood, the northern 



* The famous and infamous Catherine de'Medici. 
t A Protestant town, upon the river Loire. 



^i^fs: ] ENGLISH FACTIONS AND THE DUKE OF ANJOU. 255 

rebellion* and infinite other practices have well taught you ; of which 
if it be said it did not prevail, that is true indeed, for if they had 
prevailed it were too late now to deliberate. But at this present they 
want nothing so much as a head, who in effect needs not but to 
receive their instructions, since they may do mischief only with his 
countenance. ... If then the affectionate tide have their affections 
weakened, and the discontented have a gap to utter their discontent, 
I think it will seem an ill-preparative for the patient (I mean your 
estate) to a great sickness." 

Then Sidney turned to speak of the Duke of Anjou, 
whose poisonous influence would surely breed as great 
a sickness in the nation as any that could be dreaded. 

" Besides the French disposition and his own education, his incon- 
stant temper against his brother, his thrusting himself into the Low 
Country matters, his sometimes seeking the King of Spain's daughter, 
sometimes your Majesty, are evident testimonies of his being carried 
away with every wind of hope. Taught to love greatness any way 
gotten, and having for the motioners and ministers of the mind only 
such young men as have showed they think evil contentment a ground 
of any rebellion, who have seen no commonwealth but in faction, and 
divers of which have defiled their hands in odious murders, — with such 
fancies and favourites, what is to be hoped for ? that he will contain 
himself within the limits of your condition ? — since, in truth, it were 
strange that he that cannot be contented to be the second person in 
France, and heir apparent, should be content to come to be a second 
person where he should pretend no way to sovereignty. His power, 
I imagine, is not to be despised, since he is come into a country where 
the way of evil doing will be presented unto him, where there needs 
nothing but a head to draw together all the ill-affected members ; 
himself a prince of great revenues, of the most popular nation of the 
world, full of soldiery and such as are used to serve without pay, so as 
they may have show of spoil ; and without question shall have his 
brother ready to help him, as well for old revenge, as to divert him 
from troubling France, and to deliver his own country from evil 
humours I think I may easily conclude that your country 



■*■ That headed by the Duke of Norfolk, who was executed in 
1572. 



256 A MEMOIR OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. [Chap, ix- 

— as well by long peace and fruits of peace, as by the poison of divi- 
sion, wherewith the faithful shall by this means be wounded and the 
contrary enabled — made fit to receive hurt, and Monsieur [that is, the 
Duke of Aujou] being every way likely to use the occasions to hurt, 
there can almost happen no worldly thing of more eminent danger to 
your estate royal." 



The second part of Sidney's argument dealt with 
the personal considerations involved in the projected 



" Often have I heard you, with protestation, say no private pleasure 
nor self-afi'ection could lead you to it [that is, to a married life] ; but 
if it be both unprofitable for your kingdom and unpleasant to you, 
certainly it were a dear purchase of repentance. Nothing can it add 
unto you but the bliss of children, which I confess were a most 
unspeakable comfort, but yet no more appertaining imto him than to 
any other to whom the height of all good haps were allotted, to be 
your husband ; and, therefore, I may assuredly affirm that what good 
soever can follow marriage is no more his than any body's ; but the 
evils and dangers are peculiarly annexed to his person and con- 
dition." 



What were the motives to this sudden change from a 
love of virginity to an eagerness to be married *? The 
Queen had adduced two — the fear of standing alone, 
and the danger of popular contempt ; and these Sidney 
proceeded to discuss. 

Standing alone, with good government, both in peace 
and in warlike defence, he declared to be the best thing- 
possible to a well-estabhshed monarchy ; those buildings 
being ever most durable which stand firmly on their 
own foundations. Undoubtedly the leaguing together 
of princes was at times a good thing, when either some 
great end had to be secured, or some great peril had to 



^^^^5.] THE INEXPEDIEIsCY OF THE MAERIAGE. 257 

be avoided ; but in this case neither motive could with 
the least reason exist. 

" Monsieur's desires and yours, how tliey shall meet in public mat- 
ters, I think no oracle can tell. For, as the geometricians say that 
parallels, because they maintain divers lines, can never join, so truly, 
two, having in the beginning contrary principles, to bring forth one 
doctrine, must be some miracle. He, of the Romish religion, and, if 
he be a man, must needs have that manlike property, to desire that 
all men be of his mind ; you, the erector and defender of the contrary, 
and the only sun that dazzleth their eyes : he, French and desiring to 
make France great ; your Majesty, English and desiring nothing less 
than that France should not grow great ; he, both by own fancy and 
youthful governors, embracing all ambitious hopes, having Alexander's 
image in his head, but perhaps evil painted ; your Majesty, with ex- 
cellent virtue taught what you should hope and, by no less wisdom, 
what you may hope, with a council renowned over all Christendom for 
their well-tempered minds, having set the utmost of their ambition in 
your favour and the study of their souls in your safety." 

Elizabeth's other excuse, of the danger of popular 
contempt, was the last point touched upon by Sidney ; 
and here, it must be admitted, in his capacity as courtier 
he was led to use terms which could hardly have been 
genuine. He had been addressing the Queen with 
unusual boldness and bluntness, and now he could not 
help seeking to soften her anger, almost sure to be 
excited, with a few honeyed words, such as she liked 
best of all to hear. Speaking of the scandalous stories 
which were occasionally started concerning her, he 
added : — 

" I durst with my blood answer it, that there was never monarch 
held in more precious reckoning of her people ; and, before God, how 
can it be otherwise ? For mine own part, when I hear some lost 
wi'etch hath defiled such a name with his mouth, I consider the right 
name of blasphemy, whose unbridled soul doth delight to deprave 



258 A MEMOIR OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. [Chap. ix. 

that which is accounted generally most high and holy. No, no, most 
excellent Lady, do not raze out the impression you have made in such 
a multitude of hearts, and let not the scum of such vile minds bear 
any witness against your subjects' devotions ; which, to proceed one 
point further, if it were otherwise, could little be helped, but rather 
nourished and in eflfect begun by this [marriage]. The only means of 
avoiding contempt are love and fear ; love, as you have by divers 
means sent into the depth of their souls — so, if anything can stain so 
true a form, it must be the trimming yourself not in your awn like- 
ness, but in new colours unto them ; their fear by him cannot be 
increased, without the appearance of French forces, the manifest death 
of your estate." 

" Since then," said the brave courtier in conclusion — 

*' Since then it is dangerous for your state, because, by inward 
weakness, principally caused by division, it is fit to receive harm ; 
since to your person it can be no way comfortable, you not desiring 
marriage ; and neither to person nor estate he is to bring any more 
good than any body, but more evil he may : since the causes that 
should drive you to this are either fears of that which cannot happen, 
or by this means cannot be prevented ; I do with most humble heart 
say unto your Majesty, having essayed this dangerous help, for your 
standing alone, you must take it for a singular honour God hath done 
you, to be indeed the only protector of His Church. And yet in 
worldly respects your kingdom is very sufficient so to do, if you make 
that religion upon which you stand to carry the only strength, and 
have abroad those that still maintain the same course, who, as long 
as they may be kept from utter falling, your Majesty is sure enough 
from your mightiest enemies. As for this man, as long as he is but 
Monsieur in might and a Papist in profession, he neither can or will 
greatly shield you ; and, if he get once to be King, his defence will be 
like Ajax's shield, which rather weighed them down than defended 
those that bare it. Against contempt, if there be any, which I will 
never believe, let your excellent virtues of piety, justice, and libera- 
lity daily, if it be possible, more and more shine. Let such particular 
actions be found out, which be easy as I think to be done, by which 
you may gratify all the hearts of your people : let those in whom you 
find trust and to whom you have committed trust, in your weighty 
aflairs, be held up in the eyes of your subjects : lastly, doing as you 
do, you shall be, as you be, the example of princes, the ornament of 



1580. 
^t. 25 



.] THE EFFECT OF HIS ARGUMENTS. 259 



this age, and the most excellent fruit of your progenitors, and the per- 
fect mirror of your posterity. 

" Your Majesty's faithful, humble, and obedient subject, 

"P. Sidney."* 



'No commentary is needed to such a letter as that. 
Seldom* has a subject entered upon a more delicate 
contest with his sovereign, or conducted it in a nobler 
and more dignified way. The merits of the document 
have not been overstated by the historians and critics 
who have alluded to it ; but it certainly had not the 
effect commonly reported, f Elizabeth was not at all 
convinced by its arguments. For at least two years 
longer she dallied with the Duke of Anjou ; and 
Sidney had to pay the penalty of his boldness by eight 
or nine months' hiding from her frown. Many feared, 
indeed, that he would receive a much harder punish- 
ment than the mere temporary withdrawal of the royal 
favour. Languet anticipated for him exile at the least. 
" You will hardly find safety in Flanders,'' he wrote, 

* Sidney Papers, vol. i. pp. 287 — 292. 

t Strype, for example, in the Annals of the Beformation, says : — 
*' It contains many brief but bright sentences, showing the mature 
judgment of the writer, his skill in politics, his acquaintance with 
Roman history, his knowledge of foreign states and kingdoms and 
observations thence, his apprehension of the great danger from Papists, 

his concern for the Protestant interest abroad So that, in 

short, this letter seems to have swayed the Queen to decline 

this motion." Hume also observes, " Sir Philip Sidney 

used the freedom to write her a letter, in which he dissuaded her from 
her present resolution, with an unusual elegance of expression, as well 
as force of reasoning." And Zouch, who ought to have known better, 
says that, " She broke oif the negotiation, and instantly discarded the 
proposals of her youthful lover." (p. 181.) 

s 2 



260 A MEMOIR OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. [Chap IX 

" and still less in France ; your religion shuts you out 
of Spain and Italy ; so that Germany is the only place 
left to receive you, should you be forced to quit your 
country." * 

For a month or two before this, indeed, Languet was 
anxious for his friend to leave England for the conti- 
nent — partly as a measure conducive to his safety, 
partly for the good it would do him, as the old 
man judged, to shake off his courtly indolence and 
engage in some active work. " If Oxford's arrogance 
and insolence," he WTote, on the 14th of November, 
1579, "have awakened you from your sleep, he will 
have wronged you less than they who have hitherto 
been so indulgent to you.'' f The objections for- 
merly raised by Languet against Sidney's wish to take 
part in foreign strife seemed to him no longer to 
exist. The growing needs of the cause, and the closer 
alliance of England v^ith the Low Countries, he said, 
would fully justify his friend's enlistment. " If your 
absence from home is not inconvenient to your noble 
father and your other kin, I think you ought to come. 
I do not count as an inconvenience, the grief which 
your absence will cause them, because of their great 
love for you. For I hope that you will gain experience 
and information, and will return to them in such high 
repute, that they will be glad of your absence and be 
proud of what you have done." J Seven days later he 
wrote again, " I beg you to think whether it will not be 

* Langueti EpistolcB, p. 250. + Ibid., p. 243. 

% Ibid., pp. 243, 244. 



1580. 
^t. 25. 



] laistguet's ADYICE. 2fil 



right for you to pome here and devote yourself to miH- 
tary work." '^ 

On the 30th of January, 1580, Languet sent another 
letter to say that Philip need not be afraid of Anjou, 
who was not likely to be in the Netherlands before 
autumn. " I admire your courage," he went on to say, 
"in so plainly advising the Queen and your country- 
men of that which is to the State's advantage. But 
you must be careful not to go too far, and so earn more 
disfavour than you can bear. Old men generally think 
ill of the young, whom they do not at all like to find 
wiser than themselves. Remember that most of those 
who now think with you are likely to go over to the 
other side as soon as they find that it is safest, and 
that you have done nothing to influence the Queen, 
but rather have grievously offended her by your oppo- 
sition. I do not write this to dissuade you from the 
honest road which you have taken ; but I want you to 
bear in mind that you are struggling for the good of 
your country, and not out of any private spite or mere 
love of victory. When you find that your resistance 
stirs up only envy and hatred, and brings no profit 
either to your nation, or to yourself, or to your friends, 
you must give way to necessity, and preserve yourself 
for better times. For you may be sure that time will 
eventually bring you occasions and means of doing 
service to your State. Take care, I beseech you, and 
let not the heat of youth drive you on too far — 
drive you to your own destruction." Languet wrote 

* Langueti EpistolcR, p. 245. 



262 A MEMOIR OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. ICi.ap. ix. 

much more to the same effect. He dreaded the worst 
— thought the effect of Sidney's recent conduct was such 
that he could not live honourably or safely in England ; 
it would be much better, he urged, for him to come at 
once and accept a voluntary exile, in which there could 
be no dishonour, but rather much credit, if he used it 
rightly and in soldierly exercise.* 

Sidney knew very well that his case was not at all so 
dangerous as his friend fancied ; but he seems to have 
had some design of crossing the Channel. Languet 
wrote in February and again in March to advise him as 
to the mode of his coming, the kind of recruits he had 
better bring with him, and the way in which he ought 
to demean himself But, like previous schemes of the 
same sort, this issued in nothing. It is likely that Sidney, 
who, in any other case, would gladly have gone to take 
part in the Low Country strife, did not, upon reflection, 
choose to quit England in the present crisis. It would 
look like running away from home duties and respon- 
sibilities. Every one knew that the Queen was angry 
with him, and if he went abroad just then it would 
seem to be either a cowardly seeking of his own safety, 
or an unpatriotic defiance of his sovereign. He re- 
solved to stay at home ; but he could not remain at 
Court. If on any grounds that had been convenient, 
his pride was too great. He therefore went down 
to Wilton, and there — or at any rate in that part of 
the country — he remained for at least seven months in 
strict retirement from the l)usy courtly world. 

* Langueti Epistoloe,, pp. 249 — 251. 



je]%1'] at WILTON. 263 

He was at Wilton on the 25th of March, and from a 
short letter written on that day to Arthur Atey, the 
secretary of his uncle, the Earl of Leicester, we are able 
to infer a little of his haughty, angry mood. The letter 
alludes to some former correspondence which is lost : — 

" Mr. ^tey, 

" I thank you as mucL. as your love and my gratefulness 
require. Truly you do me much pleasure, which, among many things, 
I lay up in my mind towards you. Here are no news but that all 
be well, which God keep, and thee too, my honest Atey. Farewell, 
and assure yourself I wiU you exceeding well. At Wilton, this 25th 
March, 1580. 

" Your loving friend eflfectuaUy, 

" Philip Sidney."* 



He was at Wilton, also, on the 28th of April, when 
his nephew Wilham, the first-born child of the Countess 
of Pembroke, was christened. For godmother, the 
infant, just twenty days old, had Queen Elizabeth 
herself, on whose behalf appeared Anne, Countess of 
Warwick. His great-uncles, the Earls of Warwick and 
Leicester, were godfathers ; the former attending in 
person, the latter being represented by Mr. Philip 
Sidney.f 

The Queen was willing to pay a compliment to the 
Countess of Pembroke, for whom, from first to last, 
she had a reasonable liking. But she was angry with 



* State Paper Office, Domestic Correspondence, Elizabeth, vol. 
cxxxvi. No. 74. 

t Offer and Hoare, Modern Wiltshire, (1825), p. 119. Langueti 
Epistolce, p. 273. 



264 A MEMOIR OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. [Chap. IX. 

most of the family. Leicester was still out of favour 
and towards Sir Henry Sidney she continued to show 
the displeasure which had hung over him for three 
years past. Ever since his return from Ireland he had 
been busy as Lord President of Wales ; and in the 
spring months of 1580, during which his daughter was 
ill and his son was residing in Wilton, he aeems to 
have often resorted thither. Queen EHzabeth sent a 
message in June to say that she misliked this proceed- 
ing.'"" Considering the dangerous condition of the 
country, and the need of keeping the whole Prin- 
cipality in a proper state of defence, she said that Sir 
Henry ought to spend all his time therein. It was 
a paltry exhibition of ill-nature, seeing that Wilton 
was almost as accessible as Ludlow from nearly every 
part of Wales. 

Nor was that all. In August, the Queen sent to 
censure Sir Henry Sidney again ; this time for not being- 
more zealous in hunting down the Roman Catholics of 
Wales, and so aiding the reformation of " the recusants 
and other obstinate persons in religion." " Your Lord- 
ship," wrote Walsingham, in a postscript, " had need to 
w^alk warily, for your doings are narrowly observed, 
and Her Majesty is apt to give ear to any that shall ill 
you."t 

Philip, holding no office from the Crown, could not 
be taken to task. I imagine that, when the first 
chagrin was over, he found the time pass pleasantly 



* Sidney Paj^ers, vol, ii. pp. 273, 274. 
t Ibid., p. 276. 



15S0 
^t. 25 



] THE COUNTESS OF PEMBROKE.. 265 

and profitably. In his sister Mary's company there 
was never lack of entertainm( 
according to Spenser's pastoral- 



was never lack of entertainment to him. She being, 



" The gentlest shepherdess that lives this day. 
And most resembling both in shape and spright 
Her brother dear," ^ 

there was always deep sympathy between them. 

The noblest influences that fell upon Phihp's life 
came — unless we make exception on behalf of their 
mother — from Mary. The part taken by others in 
the malting of his character is very clearly discernible. 
From early boyhood he had an example of sturdy 
honesty in the conduct of his father. The blunt 
Huguenot training of Languet took firm root in his 
mind, and mainly inclined him, we may believe, to his 
life-long interest in that great battle of religious freedom 
which he did his utmost to aid during life, and the manly 
furtherance of which was the occasion of his death. 
Teaching, not unlike Languet's, but very difierently 
imparted, came to him from the first Earl of Essex. 
By Essex's rival and his own uncle, the Earl of 
Leicester, he was encouraged in very different pur- 
suits. Leicester's success disposed him to walk much 
and gaily upon the shore of courtly favour, tempted 
to throw himself recklessly into the midst of it, 
and float wherever the waves of fortune tossed him. 
Another large influence, and the most baneful of all, 
came presently from Leicester's new step -daughter, 

* Spenser, Asi/rophel, 11. 212—214. 



266 A MEMOIR OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. r^nAP ix 

Penelope Devereux. But in aid of all that was good 
about the impressions of these and all other minds 
upon the mind of Sidney, and in opposition to every- 
thing that was bad, was the influence of the Countess 
of Pembroke — 

" Urania, sister unto Astrophel, 
In whose brave mind, as in a golden coffer, 

All heavenly gifts and riches locked are, 
More rich than pearls of Ind or gold of Ophir, 

And in her sex more wonderful and rare." * 

The truest and noblest women always walk through 
the world most noiselessly. Having endowments richer, 
it may be, than any of which men can boast, they know 
that their wealth of mind is to be applied — not as 
that of men are bound to use their talents, in the busy 
jostling world, but in the sacred privacy of home. 
Greater faith and patience and self-sacrifice are needed. 
It is harder to plod on through weary years, exerting 
an influence often inappreciable, and seldom duly ap- 
preciated, upon sons, brothers, and husbands, who are 
thereby to be fitted for their battle in the open field. 
Yet thus, and thus only, the intellectual and moral life 
of mankind is preserved and extended from generation 
to generation. Those women who come out of their 
closets, who mix in the great world's strife, and aim in 
any way to produce a direct and visible effect upon its 
progress, may do very memorable and thankworthy 
work ; but the work is really less in its issue, and less 
^.v> honourable to themselves, than if they had wisely 

■^ Spenser, Colin Cloiifs Come Home Againe, 11. 487 — 491. 



I 



\ 



15S0, 



S] THE COUNTESS OF PEMBROKE. 267 



exercised their powers in the arming of others, as only 
high-souled women can arm them, for the contest in 
which, by necessity, manly strength of limb and fixed- 
ness of purpose fight with most effect. 

Of the two ways in which gifted women may influ- 
ence their age, Mary, Countess of Pembroke, chose the 
better. Had she thought it well, she could have made 
far greater exhibition of her talent ; but then Ben 
Jonson might not have written over her tomb the 
epitaph which all men know by heart : — 

" Underneatli this sable liearse 
Lies the subject of all verse, 
Sidney's sister, Pembroke's mother. 
Death ! ere thou hast found another 
Learned, fair and good as she, 
Time shall throw a dart at thee." 



Intellectually, she seems to have been fully equal to 
her brother ; morally, perhaps, she was his superior. 
Ben Jonson's praise was not simply hers by a tomb- 
stone compliment : it was earned by the whole conduct 
of her life. In quiet, hidden works she exercised her 
mind and heart, and we are therefore able, at the 
distance of nearly three centuries, to follow them but 
vaguely. Yet there are many evidences of her character, 
and none, perhaps, is more noteworthy than the result 
of Sidney's seven or eight months' residence at Wilton 
in 1580. 

He came down angry with his Queen, weary of the 
whole Court, and thoroughly discontented with himself 
But the sisterly light which was shed upon him made 



268 A MEMOIR OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. [CnAP. ix. 

these moiitlis among the briglitest and richest in his 
whole hfe. It was for the most part a studious, hard- 
working period, the work being either suggested or 
shared by his learned sister. 

Now, it would appear, was begun their joint trans- 
lation of The Psalms of David, an undertaking espe- 
cially to Mary's taste. In that day, as in every day 
when a new literary era was being entered upon, 
translations from all languages were freely made. 
Forty years ago Surrey had rendered two books of the 
JEneid into the earliest English blank verse, and both 
he and Wyatt had translated some of the Psalms. In 
1555 and the following years, Phaier had issued his 
version of nine books of Virgil's poem. In 1562 had 
appeared the famous rendering of the Psalms by Stern- 
hold and Hopldns, with many others to assist them. 
In 1565, Arthur Golding had translated the first four 
books of the Metamorphoses. Next year Grant had 
published his adaptation of two books of Horace's 
Odes. Two volumes of The Palace of Pleasure, fur- 
nished by Paynter and others with Italian tales, chiefly 
from Boccaccio, were completed in 1566 and 1567. 
Numerous workmen, from such an one as Edmund 
Spenser down to the humblest wielder of the pen, were 
at this time busy in presenting the books of other lands 
to English readers. Even now, it may be, Sir John 
Harrington was busy with his version of the Orlando 
Furioso ; while Carew, Sidney's old Oxford rival, was 
possibly beginning his Godfrey of Boloigne, adapted 
from Tasso. 

It was in keeping with the tendency of the day, then. 



^^,fi] THE PSALMS OF DAVID. 289 

that Sidney helped his sister to present the Psalms in 
better Eughsh verse than had yet been produced by 
the translators. We have no means of separating the 
brother's from the sister's work : but I imagine that 
Sidney did not do very much. Probably the idea and 
its application were both mainly due to the Countess of 
Pembroke, by whom were prepared translations of 
several other works. The version, made honestly and 
often with a fair measure of poetical skill, was in every 
way superior to that compiled by Sternhold and Hopkins. 
Of its merits a single quotation will afford sufficient 
evidence : — 

" The Lord, the Lord my shepherd is, 
And so can never I 
Taste misery. 
He rests me in green pastures His ; 
By waters still and sweet 
He guides my feet. 

" He me revives, leads me the way 
Which righteousness doth take 
For His name's sake : 
Yea, though I should through valleys stray 
Of death's dark shade, I will 
No whit fear ill. 

"For Thou, dear Lord, Thou me besett'st, 
Thy rod and Thy staff be 
To comfort me : 
Before me Thou a table sett'st. 
E'en when foes' envious eye 
Doth it esp3^ 

' ' Thou oil'st my head. Thou fiU'st my cup ; 
Nay, more. Thou, endless good, 
Shalt give me food. 



270 A MEMOIR OF SIR I'llILIP SIDNEY. [Cum. ix 

To Thee, I pray, ascended up, 
WTiere Thou, the Lord of all. 
Dost hold Thy hall."* 

lu this holiday season at Wilton, Sidney commenced 
the writing of a much more important work, and one 
more thoroughly expressive of his own temper, while 
especially designed for his sister's amusement. This 
was The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia, to be de- 
scribed hereafter. Here however must be cited the 
dedication of the book, as evidence of its origin and 
design. To his sister Philip wrote : — 

" Here now have you, most dear, and most worthy to be most 
dear Lady, this idle work of mine ; which, I fear, like the spider's 
web, will be thought fitter to be swept away, than worn to any other 
purpose. For my part, in very truth, as the cruel fathers among 
the Greeks were wont to do to the babes they would not foster, I 
could well find in my heart to cast out in some desert of forgetfulness 
this child which I am loth to father, f But you desired me to do it, 
and your desire to my heart is an absolute commandment. Now, it 
is done only for you, only to you. If "you keep it to yourself, or to 
such friends who will weigh error in the balance of good-will, I hope 
for the father's sake it will be pardoned, perchance made much of, 
though in itself it have deformities. For, indeed, for severer eyes it 
is not, being but a trifle, and that triflingly handled. Your dear self 



* The Psalmes of David, translated into Divers and Sundry Kindes 
of Verse, more Bare and Excellent, for the Method and Variety, than 
ever ^ yet hath been done in English. — Ps. xxiii. 

t It was in no affectation that Sidney spoke thus disparagingly of 
his work. A few hours before his death, he gave directions that the 
Arcadia should be given to the flames. Hence John Owen's epigram : 

*'Ipse tuam moriens (vel conjuge teste) jubebas 

Arcadiam ssevis ignibus esse cibum. 
Si meruit mortem, quia flammam accendit amoris, 

Mergi, non uri, debuit iste liber. 
In librum qusecunque cadat sententia nulla, 

Debuit iugenium morte perii'e tuum." 



1580. 
^t. 25 



] THE AECADIA. 271 



can best witness the maimer, being done in loose sheets of paper, most 
of it in your presence, the rest by sheets sent unto you as fast as they 
were done. In sum, a young head not so well staid as I would it 
were, and shall be, when God will, — having many, many fancies 
begotten in it, if it had not been in some way delivered, would have 
grown a monster ; and more sorry might I be that they came in 
than that they got out. But his chief safety shall be the not walking 
abroad ; and his chief protection the bearing the livery of your name, 
which, if much good-will do not deceive me, is worthy to be a 
sanctuary for a greater offender. This say I, because I know the 
virtue so ; and this say I, because it may be ever so ; or, to say 
better, because it will be ever so. Read it then at your idle times, and 
the follies your good judgment will find in it, blame not, but laugh 
at ; and so — looking for no better stuff than as, in a haberdasher's 
shop, glasses or feathers — you will continue to love the writer who 
doth exceedingly love you, and most, most heartily prays you may 
long live to be a principal ornament to the family of the Sidneys. 

' ' Your loving brother, 

" Philip Sidney." 

That dedication was not written till a year or two after 
the present period of Sidney's history, when he had 
written as much as he cared to write of the work com- 
menced during his retirement at Wilton. Meanwhile 
other employments, not literary, helped to provide him 
occupation. 

One business concerned his friend Spenser, who, 
since the publication of The ShepJieard^s Calender, had 
been rapidly rising in the world^s esteem. In the early 
part of the year, he was busy about several works, 
among others a Latin poem, entitled Stemmata Dud- 
leiana, not now extant. There were in it, he said in 
a letter to Gabriel Harvey, dated the 10th of April, 
"sundry apostrophes addressed you know to whom, — "'" 

* Todd, 8om& Account of the Life of S]^)enser, p. xx. 



272 A MEMOIR OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. [Cap ix. 

doubtless to Philip Sidney, in honour of whose kindred 
the whole work was composed. The poet was never 
ungrateful for his friends' kindnesses, and just now 
Sidney with his father's aid was doing his best to help 
him. At Philip's instigation, as we are to infer, Lord 
Grey of Wilton, a friend of the Sidneys, and Sir Henry's 
newly appointed successor as Lord Deputy of Ireland, 
was induced to take Spenser with him as his secretary. 
In correspondence with his friends Sidney found 
partial occupation while at Wilton. To Languet, whom 
in the bustle of Court life he was prone to forget, he 
appears to have written often. From him, at any rate, 
he received many letters, which still live. The brave 
Huguenot, now growing old and feeble, lost nothing of 
his interest in the friend whom he most loved. In the 
early part of the year, we found him writing to urge 
Philip to seek safety on the continent. When in later 
months he saw that the danger was by no means so 
great as he had feared, he became anxious that Philip 
should return to his former place of influence at Court ; 
nor was he alone in that wish. " All who are in these 
parts," he wrote from Antwerp, on the 24th of Sep- 
tember, " wonder that you should delight in this long 
retirement of yours. They can readily understand how 
it is very pleasant for you to be in the company of those 
whom you especially love, but they think it undignified 
for you to remain so long concealed, and they fear, also, 
that seclusion will loosen the stern vigour with which 
you formerly worked so nobly, and that a listlessness, 
which at one time you despised, is gradually possessing 
vour souL 



it 25. ] HIS PAST CAEEER AND PEESENT DUTY. 273 

Languet knew Sidney too well to share those fears, 
yet he wished him to be working. Life, he urged, was 
not long enough for any part of it to be spent in 
idleness ; least of all was the present a time for 
inactivity. Even if others might be pardoned for living 
uselessly, there could be no excuse for one so richly 
endowed with every grace and every talent as was 
Philip. Him, Languet said, he had always marked out 
for noble business. " When you were living with me, 
you used now and then to say that you hated the noise 
and glitter of Courts, and were resolved to live in honest 
ease and in the society of a few real friends ; and, 
when I thought of your modesty, and of your freedom 
from ambition, I feared you were in earnest. But I 
judged that your thoughts would change as you grew 
older, and that your country would compel you to en- 
rich it with the wealth of your virtue ; and I seemed to 
judge rightly. No sooner had you returned to England 
than all men admired you, and every good man sought 
your friendship. Above all, your noble Queen treated 
you with marked good- will. As a token of her esteem 
and as an encouragement to your further pursuit of 
excellence, she admitted you to great familiarity with 
herself, and honoured you with that famous embassage 
to the Emperor which, three years ago, you conducted 
so creditably. How much she made of you is shown 
in the notable eulogy which Prince Casimir heard her 
utter." At such rapid growth, not only in virtue, but 
also in public estimation, often not attained by virtue, 
every one was delighted. Languet said that one reason 
for his quitting Germany and residing in the Nether- 



274 A MEMOIR OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. [Cfiap rx. 

lands, was that he might better watch his friend's 
advancement. " But when I came hither I found a 
cloud thrown over your fortunes, which turned my 
pleasure into sorrow." Surely, this ought not to be. 
" Ask yourself, I do beseech you, how far it is honour- 
able for you to lurk where you are, while your country 
is claiming help of all her sons. If the advice which 
you offered, thinking it to be helpful to the nation, was 
not taken as it deserved to be, you ought not on that 
account to be angry with your country ; or to desist 
from seeking her safety. When Themistocles was pro- 
posing measures beneficial to the State, Eurybiades 
threatened to strike him unless he held his peace ; to 
which he answered, ' Strike, but hear.' Imitate The- 
mistocles."" At great length Languet then showed 
the especial need of brave and manly action at the 
present moment. Europe was in a deplorable condition. 
The Spaniards, by their recent victories in Portuo-al, 
were showing, more plainly than ever, both their power 
and the bad use to which they were resolved to put it. 
In the Low Countries misfortunes were thickening, and, 
without foreign help, the Protestant cause could not 
much longer be maintained. It was a gloomy picture 
at best, and Languet, full of genuine fears, painted it 
in the darkest colours. 

Languet's arguments, supported by other reasons 
just now working upon Sidney's mind, were successful. 
His Enghsh friends were as anxious as those on the 
Continent for his return to Court. Queen Elizabeth, 

■^ Lavgueti Epistolce, pp. 277 — 279. 



if 25. ] AT COURT AG Am. 275 

moreover, was now willing to make some concessions of 
pride, and therefore it became her subjects to be as 
conciliatory. In August, or earlier, the Earl of Leicester 
had been recalled from his seclusion. It was through 
his influence probably that the disagreement between 
his nephew and the Queen was removed. Her Majesty 
offering forgiveness for the blunt, bold language which 
had offended her, and Sidney consenting to make no 
further objections to the purposed marriage with the 
Duke of Anjou. 

Sidney was in London again, and lodging for awhile 
at Leicester House, in October. On the 18th of 
that month he wrote another long and noble letter 
to his brother Robert, which, in the absence of any 
detailed knowledge of his occupation, must be read for 
illustration of the writer's mind. 

Its beginning touches money matters. Robert was 
an extravagant lad, and on that account he was 
often in trouble with his father. " I find," wrote Sir 
Henry, on one occasion, " that all your money is gone ; 
which, with some wonder, displeaseth me ; and if you 
cannot frame your charges according to that proportion 
I have appointed you, I must and will send for you 
home. Assure yourself I shall not enlarge one groat."* 
Robert was therefore driven to seek help from Philip, 
and Philip helped him gladly. " For the money you 
have received," he said, " assure yourself — for it is true 
— there is nothing I spend so pleaseth me as that which 
is for you. If ever I have ability, you will find it ; 



Sidney Papers, vol. i. p. 246. 

T 2 



276 A MEMOIR OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. [CnAP. IX. 

if not, yet shall not any brother living be better beloved 
than you of me/' 

Sidney then proceeded to give him brotherly ad- 
vice on several matters. In the first place, "look to 
your diet, sweet Eobin, and hold up your heart in 
courage and virtue : truly, great part of my comfort is 
in you." Further on Philip said much, and said it 
very well, about the writing of history, that apparently 
being Robert's favourite study. 



^*For the method of writing history, Boden hath written at large : 
you may read him, and gather out of many words some matter. 
This I think in haste ; a story is either to be considered as a story, 
or as a treatise, which, besides that, addeth many things for profit and 
ornament. As a story, it is nothing but a narration of things done, 

with the beginnings, causes, and appendances thereof In 

that kind you have principally to note the examples of virtue or vice, 
with their good or evil successes, the establishments or ruins of great 
estates, with the causes, the time, and circumstances of the laws then 
wrote of, the enterings and endings of wars, and therein the stratagems 
against the enemy, and the discipline upon the soldier, and thus much 
as a very historiogi'apher. Besides this, the historian makes himself a 
discourser for profit, and an orator, yea, a poet sometimes, for orna- 
ment : an orator, in making excellent orations e re natd, which are 
to be marked, but marked with the note of rhetorical remem- 
brances ; a poet, in painting forth the efiects, the motions, the 
whisperings of the people, which though in disputation, one might 
say were true, yet who will mark them well shall find them taste 
of a poetical vein, and in that kind are gallantly to be marked ; for 
though, perchance, they were not so, yet it is enough they might be 
so. The last point which tends to teach profit, is of a discourse, 
which name I give to whosoever speaks, non simpliciter de facto sed 
de qualitatihus et circumstantiis facti (and that is it which makes 
me and many others rather note much with our pen than with 
our mind, because we leave all these discourses to the confused 
trust of our memory, because they being not tied to the tenor of 
of a question, as philosophers use sometimes places) ; the divine, iu 
telling his opinion and reasons in religion ; sometimes the lawyer^ in 



1580. 

^t. 25 



i ] HISTORY AND OTHER STUDIES. 277 



showing tlie causes and benefits of laws ; sometimes a natural j)liilo- 
soplier, in setting down the causes of any strange thing, which the 
story binds him to speak of ; but most commonly, a moral philo- 
sopher, either in the epic part when he sets forth virtues or vices, 
and the natures of passions, or in the politic, when he doth (as he 
often doth) meddle sententiously with matters of estate. Again, 
sometimes he gives precept of war, both offensive and defensive ; and 
so, lastly, not professing any art, as his matter leads him, he deals 
with all arts, which because it carrieth the life of a lively example, it 
is wonderful what light it gives to the arts themselves, so as the 
great civilians help themselves with the discourses of the historians ; 
so do soldiers, and even philosophers and astronomers. But that I 
wish herein is this, that when you read any such thing, you straight 
bring it to his head, not only of what art, but by your logical sub- 
divisions, to the next member and parcel of the art. And so, as in 
a table, be it witty words, of which Tacitus is full, sentences of 
which Livy, or similitudes whereof Plutarch, straight to lay it up 
in the right place in his storehouse, as either military, or more 
specially defensive military, or more particularly defensive by forti- 
fication, and so lay it up : so, likewise, in pohtic matters ; and such 
a little table you may easily make, wherewith I would have you ever 
join the historical part, which is only the example of some stratagem 
or good counsel, or such like. This write I to you in great haste, of 
method without method, but with more leisure and study (if I do 
not find some book that satisfies), I will venture to write more largely 
of it unto you." 



Then Philip passed on to speak of other subjects 
worthy of study. " Now, dear brother, take dehght 
Ukewise in the mathematicals. I think you understand 
the sphere : if you do, I care Httle for any more as- 
tronomy in you. Arithmetic and geometry I would 
wish you well seen in, so as, both in matter of number 
and measure, you might have a feeling and active 
judgment. I would you did bear the mechanical in- 
struments wherein the Dutch excel." " So you can 
speak and write Latin, not barbarously, I never require 



278 A MEMOIR OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. LChai. ix. 

great study in Ciceronianism, the chief abuse of Oxford, 
qui, dum verba sectantur, res ipsas negliguntr 

Sidney, tliough he had just come back to the full 
enjoyment of Queen Elizabeth's favour, though he had 
everything which a mere courtier could have wished to 
have, was not thereby made happy. In one part of this 
letter, overflowing as it was with kitidly interest in 
all the noblest cares of life, he spoke as if he were 
almost weary of life altogether. " I write this to you," 
he said, "as one that, for myself, have given over the 
delight in the world, but wish to you as much if not 
more than to myself And in another place he says : 
" My eyes are almost closed up, overwatched with tedious 
business." He bade his brother give good heed to the 
learning of music : " you will not believe what a want 
I find of it in my melancholy times." In other parts of 
this letter there was show of a forced gaiety, quite as 
indicative of Sidney's true mind as these open avowals 
of distress. But, whether gay or sad, there seemed no 
end to the pleasant brotherly counsel which, in desultory 
way, he liked to give. 

"At horsemansMp, when you exercise it, read Orison Claudio, and 
a book that is called La Gloria deV Cavallo withal, that you may join 
the thorough contemplation of it with the exercise ; and so shall you 
profit more in a month than others in a year, and mark the bitting, 
saddling, and curing of horses. I would, by the way, your worship 
would learn a better hand ; you write worse than I, and I write evil 
enough. Once again, have a care of your diet, and consequently* of 
your complexion ; remember, Gratior est veniens in pulchro corpore 

virtus When you play at weapons, I would have you 

get thick caps and brasers, and play out your play lustily, for indeed 
tricks and dalliances are nothing in earnest, for the time of the one 
and the other greatly differs : and use as well the blows as the thrust ; 



it 25.] A MODEL FOR WELL-DISPOSED YOUNG GENTLEMEK. 279 

it is good in itself, and besides exerciseth your breath and strength, 
and will make you a strong man at the tourney and barriers. First, 
in any case, practise the single sword, and then with the dagger ; let 
no day pass without an hour or two such exercise ; the rest study, or 
confer diligently, and so shall you come home to my comfort and 
credit. Lord ! how I have babbled ! Once again, farewell, dearest 
brother. 

" Your most loving and careful brother, 

"Philip Sidney."* 



It is not strange that Sir Henry Sidney, after com- 
plaining to Robert of his faults, should have said, '^Perge, 
perge, my Robin, in the filial fear of God, and in the 
meanest imagination of yourself, and to the loving- 
direction of your most loving brother. Imitate his 
virtues, exercises, studies, and actions. He is a rare 
ornament of this age, the very formular that all well- 
disposed young gentlemen of our court do form all 
their manners and life by. In troth, I speak it without 
flattery of him or of myself, he hath the most rare 
virtues that ever I found in any man.^f 

* Sidney Papers, vol. i. pp. 283 — 285. 
t Ibid. vol. i. p. 246. 



CHAPTER X. 

COURTLY BONDAGE. 

1580—1582. 

HuBEET Languet's last letter to Sidney was dated 
from Antwerp, on the 28th of October, 1580. "I am 
glad,'' he said, " as I have already written, that you 
have abandoned your retirement and returned to the 
daylight of the Court ; but I am afraid you will 
soon get weary of it. I see that its honours and 
dignities are given to age and wealth rather than to 
virtue and prudence, so that you, who are yet young 
and without property of your own, will not easily reap 
any advantage. It will be dreary work for you, 
wasting the spring-time of your life amid the for- 
malities and indolence of a Court ; for the employments 
of courtiers do not often produce any public good, and 
very seldom relate to the better part of life. But I 
am sure you will not allow yourself to be deceived 
by any foohsh hopes. I know that you and your 
estimable friend Mr. Dyer, of whose honesty and 
prudence you have had such abundant proof, will 
think seriously of the position of your affairs, and will 
settle how to occupy yourselves. To j^our noble 
father, and to all your other kin it will be a great 



1580. 
Mt. 25. 



] languet's last warning. 281 



satisfaction to enjoy the rich and good fruit of your 
intellect, whatever it may be. To your father, indeed, 
you owe a large debt ; but still more are you bound to 
your country, on whose behalf you must do all you can 
to avert the cruel tempests which threaten it. You 
see how much good has come to poor distracted Ire- 
land from your labours. I think there are not many 
men among you who would prefer the welfare of the 
State to their own interests. I anticipate many 
troubles, a future when your noblemen will be sepa- 
rated into factions and at strife with one another, 
when the neighbouring nations will throw fuel upon the 
fire which is to be kindled among you. Believe me, 
there are storms brewing that are not to be dispelled 
by the fallacies which have well nigh driven all noble- 
mindedness and simpKcity of thought out of the 
Christian world." '" 

Those earnest sentences must have stirred Sidney as 
he read them ; and when the noble man, who had 
been his loving friend for more than eight years, had 
passed out of a world about which he had grown 
almost hopeless, he must often have been reminded of 
their truth. Perhaps they fairly express the conclusion 
at which he had himself arrived respecting both the 
state of public affairs and the duties devolving upon 
him. But many difiiculties were in the way. There 
arose numberless temptations of a kind most likely to 
prevail with a young, handsome, and talented man. 
These years, therefore, show us a prolonged struggle 

^ Langudi EplsioloB, pp. 287, 288. 



282 A MEMOIR OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. [(Juaf. X. 

between the purest and wisest thoughts and aspirations 
which an earnest patriot could strive to embody in his 
hfe, and a whole army of hindrances, raised partly by 
his own weaker nature and maintained by the circum- 
stances of his time and station. 

He followed Languet's advice in taking counsel of 
Edward Dyer, although the communion appears to 
have been of much lighter character than the sturdy 
Huguenot had meant. Long before, these two and 
Fulke Greville had formed a sort of club for literary 
exercise, and in all courtly employments they were 
close associates through life. But Sidney's friends do 
not seem to have fallen into like disgrace to that which 
had caused him to retire from the court. He found 
them there on his return, and it is to this period that 
we may, without much question, refer a pleasant little 
pastoral, written "upon his meeting with his two 
friends and fellow-poets.'' Four out of ten verses are 
here : — 



"Join, mates, in mirth to me. 

Grant pleasure to our meeting ; 
Let Pan, our good god, see. 
How grateful is our greeting. 

Join hearts and hands, so let it be ; 
Make but one mind in bodies three, 

"Ye hymns, and singing skill 
Of god Apollo's giving, 
Be pressed our reeds to fill 
With sound of music living. 

Join hearts and hands, so let it be ; 
Make but one mind in bodies three. 



ifk ] I^ ATTENDANCE ON TWO QUEENS. 283 

" Welcome, my two, to me, 
The munber best beloved, 
Within my heart you be 
In friendship nnremoved. 

Join hearts and hands, so let it be ; 
Make but one mind in bodies three. 



" Cause all the mirth you can. 
Since I am now come hither. 
Who never joy but when 
I am with you together. 

Join hearts and hands, so let it be. 
Make but one mind in bodies three." * 

But Sidney did not return to Court simply for the 
sake of meeting with these friends. He came to make 
peace with his Queen, to whom, on New Year's Day of 
1581, he made three characteristic presents — a gold- 
handled whip, a golden chain, and a heart of gold, as 
though in token of his entire subservience to her 
Majesty, and his complete surrender of himself to the 
royal keeping. Yet he came also to pay homage to 
another sovereign, to Penelope Devereux, now Lady 
Eich, best known to all as Stella ; and thereby to give 
some notable confirmation to Languet's estimate of the 
mischiefs and disasters incident to a courtier's hfe. To 
understand it, we must glance at some occurrences 
preceding his return to London in this autumn of 
1580. 

More than five years had passed since, in the sum- 
mer of 1575, Philip first saw Penelope at Chartley.f 
During the ensuing winter he met her often at Durham 

^ Davison's Poetical Rhapsody. 

t Nichols' Progresses of Elizabeth, vol. ii. p. 301, 



284 A MEMOIR OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. [Chap. x. 

House in the Strand, and when, in September of 1576, 
her father, the Earl of Essex, lay on his death -bed, 
almost his last prayer had been that Penelope kept 
from sharing in the common "frailness of women" and 
from " learning of the vile world,'' might be led to 
become the wife of " that good gentleman Mr. Philip 
Sidney/' Two months later, Edward Waterhouse had 
written to say that all the best sort of the English 
lords looked for " the treaty between Mr. Philip and my 
Lady Penelope," and had given it as his own opinion 
that " the breaking off from their match would turn to 
more dishonour than could be repaired with any other 
marriage in England." 

But at that time the young people were hardly old 
enough to be married. Penelope was in her fifteenth 
year and Philip was just two-and-twenty. Moreover, 
his affection, both then and for some time after, does 
not seem to have been very strong. He hked the 
society of the beautiful maiden. He paid her high and 
honest compliments. He did not object to being talked 
of as her worshipper. But that was all. His mind was 
too full of other matters for him to make true the 
rumours floating about Court, or even to give willing 
ear to Languet's constant advice that he should find a 
wife. His mission to Germany in 1577 added much to 
his interest in foreign poKtics, — an interest which grew 
mightily as he watched the affairs of the Continent 
becoming every day more perilous, and felt more and 
more anxious to join in the great struggle. Home 
politics, and social topics, and family business often 
engrossed his thought, either pleasantly or painfully. 



if 25. J FEOLICSOME COURTSHIP. 285 

His friendship with Spenser, new in 1579, created in 
his mind a whole world of literary projects and ambi- 
tions. What wonder is it that, amid all these concerns, 
he cared not to think seriously of the projected mar- 
riage, was content with maintaining that frolicsome sort 
of courtship for which he afterwards severely blamed 
himself 1 

" In truth., O Love, with what a boyish kind 
Thou dost proceed in thy most serious ways, 
lliat when the Heaven to thee his best displays, 

Yet of that best thou leavest the best behind ! 

For, like a child, that some fair book doth find, 
With gilded leaves or coloured vellum plays, 
Or, at the most, on some fijie picture stays, 

But never heeds the fruit of writer's mind ; 

So, when thou saw'st, in Nature's cabiuet, 

Stella, thou straight look'dst babies in her eyes, 

In her cheek's pit thou didst thy pitfold set. 
And in her breast, bo-peep, or couching, lies. 

Playing and shining in each outward part. 

But, fool ! seek'st not to get into her heart."* 

Thus, as far as we are able to infer, stood matters 
between Philip and Penelope, when the Court became 
interested in the Duke of Anjou's fresh petition for 
Queen EHzabeth's hand. In the months during which 
Sidney was framing and uttering the bold arguments 
and earnest entreaties by which he sought to influence 
the sovereign of the land, he had no time to think 
much of the mistress of his own heart. And it is 
likely that, during the months of seclusion at Wilton, 
his dissatisfaction at courtly ways, his enjoyment of the 

* Astrophel and Stella, Sonnet xi. 



286 A MEMOIR OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. [Chap x. 

sisterly affection now notably manifested towards him, 
and his devotion to literary pursuits, all helped to divert 
his mind from thoughts of Stella. He did not know 
that the future, which for three or four years had 
been looked upon as certain, was now being made im- 
possible. 

Yet so it was. It appears that he* whom all had till 
now courted, because the Queen smiled upon him, was 
thought poorly of by many, as soon as he w^as under the 
royal frown. Perhaps it was considered that her Majesty 
would not forgive him for the boldness he had shown: 
at any rate, he could no longer be trusted to make 
such sure and rapid progress to the highest honours in 
the State as had been lately expected. The beautiful 
Lady Penelope must not be married to so reckless a 
courtier. She deserved a husband able always to keep 
firm hold of the royal favour, one who would allow no 
private notions of right and duty to stand in the way of 
his personal advancement. 

Such, at least, seems to have been the opinion of the 
Earl of Huntingdon, whose wife was Philip's aunt, and 
w^ho acted as guardian to Penelope. Careful for his 
ward's interests, he determined to provide her with a 
proper husband ; and, fortunately, one presented himself 
just now. The new suitor was Lord Robert Rich, 
inheritor of all the wealth and — said his contemporaries 
— of much of the vulgar and brutal disposition of his 
father Lord Chancellor Rich, lately deceased. Here 
was a husband worth having, " a proper gentlemaji,'' 
said the Earl of Huntingdon in a letter addressed on 
the 10th of March, 1580, to Lord Burghlej^ " and one 



^f ^5. ] ^ CHOICE OF HUSBANDS. 287 

in years very fit for my Lady Penelope Devereux, if, 
with the favour and hking of her Majesty, the matter 
might be brought to pass." *'^ 

Apparently the matter was quite to the hking of her 
Majesty, as well as agreeable to all others concerned in 
it, save to Penelope herself, whose opinion was not 
taken, and to Philip who, seeking privacy down at 
Wilton, probably did not know what was being done 
in Lord Huntingdon's abode at Newcastle. When he 
did know, he expressed his thoughts in a sonnet more 
full of puns than of compliments. 



"Rich, fools there be, whose base and filthy heart 
Lies hatching still the goods wherein they flow, 

And, damning their own selves to Tantal's smart, 
(Wealth breeding want), more blest, more wretched grow 

Yet to those fools Heaven doth such wit impart. 
As what their hands do hold, their heads do know ; 

And knowing, love, and loving, lay apart 
As sacred things, far from all danger's show. 

But that Rich fool who, by blind Fortune's lot, 
The richest gem of love and life enjoys, 

And can with foul abuse such beauties blot ; 
Let him — deprived of sweet but unfelt joys, 

Exiled for aye from those high treasures which 

He knows not — grow in only folly Rich." * 



The marriage was very soon completed, probably a 
month or two before Sidney returned to Court in 
October. Of Penelope's share in it and its future the 
Duke of Devonshire, writing twenty-five years later to 

* British Museum, Lansdowne MSS., vol. xxxi. No. 40. 
t Astrophel and Stella^ Sonnet xxv. 



288 A MEMOIR OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. fCnAP X. 

King James the First, averred that she, " being in the 
power of her friends, was married, against her will, 
unto one against whom she did protest at the very 
solemnity and ever after ; between whom, from the 
first day, there ensued continual discord, although the 
same fears that forced her to marry constrained her to 
live with him.'^* Out of such an union who can 
wonder that adultery proceeded ? and who, of all in 
Queen Elizabeth's Court, could have cast the first 
stone "? 

To Sidney the news of the marriage was terrible. 
There may be partial reflection of his thoughts in a 
Dirge which was probably written at about this time, 
and when, not knowing as much as he knew afterwards 
of Penelope's mind respecting it, he hurled part of his 
mockery at her. 

* ' Ring out your bells, let moTU'ning shows be spread, 
For Love is dead ! 

All Love is dead, infected 
With plague of deep disdain ; 

Worth, as nought worth, rejected ; 
And faith fair scorn doth gain. 

From so ungrateful fancy, 

From such a female frenzy, 

From them that use men thus. 

Good Lord, deliver us ! 

" Weep, neighbours, weep ! do you not hear it said 
That Love is dead 1 
His death-bed peacock's folly, 
His winding-sheet is shame. 

His will false-seeming holy, 
His sole executor blame. 

* Devereux, Lives of the Earls of Essex, vol. i. p. 155. 



if 25 ] PHIUP'S DISPLEASUEE. 2^! 

/ 

From so ungrateful fancy, i 

From sucli a female frenzy, 
From them that use men thus, 
Good Lord, deliver us ! 

" Let dirge be sung, and trentaLs rightly said, 
For Love is dead ! 

Sir Wrong his tomb ordaineth 
My mistress' marble heart, 

Which epitaph containeth, 
* Her eyes were once his dart.' 

From so ungrateful fancy. 

From such a female frenzy, 

From them that use men thus. 

Good Lord, deliver us ! " 



Was it on finding that Penelope merited no blame 
for the marriage into which she had been forced that 
Sidney added this other verse 1 

" Alas ! I lie ; rage hath this error bred ! 
Love is not dead ! 

Love is not dead, but sleepeth 
In her unmatchM mind. 

Where she his counsel keepeth 
Till due deserts she find. 

Therefore, from so vile fancy 

To call such wit a phrenzy. 

Who love can temper thus, 

Good Lord, deliver us !"* 



Let another Httle poem. The Smokes of Melancholy, 
be here quoted, as possibly giving evidence of Sidney's 
temper, somewhat later, when he had become famihar 
with his trouble :— 

* Miscellaneous Works, pp. 248, 249. 



290 A MEMOIR OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. [Chap. X. 

" Who hath e'er felt the change of love, 
And known those pangs that lovers prove, 

May paint my face without seeing me 

And write the state how my fancies be. 

The loathsome buds grown on Sorrow's tree. 
But who by hearsay speaks, and hath not partly felt fj^ 
What kind of fires they be in wMch those spirits melt, 

Shall guess — and fail — what doth displease ; 

Feeling my pulse, miss my disease. 

**0 no ! no ! trial only shows 
The bitter juice of forsaken woes. 

Where former bliss present evils do slain ; 

Nay, former bliss adds to present pain, 

While remembrance doth both states contain ! 
Come learners then to me, the model of mishap, 
Ingulphed in despair, slid down from Fortune's lap ; 

And, as you like my double lot. 

Tread in my steps, or follow not. 

"For me, alas ! I am fall resolved 
Those bands, alas ! shall not be dissolved, 

Not break my word, though reward come late, 

Nor fail my faith in my failing fate, 

'Not change in change, though change change my state ; 
But always own myself, with eagle-eyed truth, to fly 
Up to the sun, although the sun my wings do fry : 

For if those flames burn my desire, 

Yet shall I die in Phoenix' fire." * 

In plain prose, Sidney, finding that his mistress had 
been cruelly and unwillingly stolen from him, resolved 
to go on courting her, and to court her more zealously 
than ever, now that she was another man's wife. It is 
easy to understand how the very loss which he had 
sustained roused all the latent love that was in 
him for Penelope. Hitherto his wooing had been of 

* Miscellaneo'iis Works, pp. 239, 240. 



1581. 
iEt. 26 



] Philip's eeroe. 291 



" boyish kind ; '' he had been talking prettily and gaily, 
as he might well do, to a girl in her teens, and hardly 
sought at all " to get into her heart/' But now a rival, 
and such a rival ! had suddenly snatched her from 
him. Every law of love, he doubtless thought, and 
every principle of honour, forbade his yielding tamely 
to the theft, constrained him to make fierce pursuit, 
and, at any peril, to win back his mistress's love. 

For this crime Sidney is, of course, to be con- 
demned. He himself soon learnt to condemn it in 
some of the finest poetry that ever found utterance 
through his pen. At first holding sentiments sanc- 
tioned alike by the example of the present and by the 
tradition of the past, his manly spirit quickly rejected 
them, and, after much brave batthng with himself, he 
rose to a level of moral rectitude which none but the 
noblest minds of his own age could reach. 

While the passion lasted, however, it shed only a 
baneful influence upon his life. If it stirred him to 
excellence in all the courtly graces for which he is 
famous, it withheld him from the full exercise of those 
virtues which are the true marks of his nobility. 
For two years we find him living a comparatively 
idle life, a life in which, though there was little to be 
really condemned, there was much less evidence of 
manly work than might have been expected from him. 

About one sort of work that he did there is far too 
little information. We know that, in the early part of 
the year 1581, he served his Queen as member of her 
fourth Parliament in its third session, but of his share 
in the proceedings there is very scanty record. The 

u 2 



202 A MEMOIR OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. [Chap. X. 

former sessions having been held in 1572 and 1576, 
he could not have been present in either instance, 
and he must therefore have been now elected for the 
first time. 

The House was opened on the 16th of January. On 
the 27th was brought forward the most important 
business of tlie session. Sir Walter Mildmay, Chan- 
cellor of the Exchequer, rose, and, in a powerful speech, 
pointed out the state of foreign affairs as they affected 
his country. England, he showed, was hated by all the 
great nations, because she alone was bold and perse- 
vering in the pubHc maintenance of the Reformed Faith, 
and the noble Queen now upon the throne was especially 
detested because of her unparalleled zeal and upright- 
ness. He enlarged upon the malicious conduct of 
Rome, working through the Continental powers ; upon 
the perils arising out of the rebellious dealing in the 
north ; and upon the dangers resulting from the secret 
and mischievous labours of evil-disposed persons in the 
kingdom, now seeking with unwonted eagerness to ruin 
the welfare of the nation.* At his request, therefore, a 
committee was appointed to consider the perils arising 
to the State from the evil practices of the Papists, to 
suggest sharper laws for restraining and bridling the 
obstinacy of the same, and to decide the amount of 
subsidy needed for preparing a force sufficient to defend 
the country both by land and by sea. In this committee 
Mr. Philip Sidney was elected to sit, his companions 
being Mr. Peter Wentworth and many other notable 

* D'Ewes, pp. 285—289. 



l%] IN parliament; 293 



15S1 



men.* On a later day, upon its recommendation, the 
House granted to her Majesty a supply of one subsidy 
and two-fifteenths. Various provisions were made for 
strengthening the hands of the government against 
dangerous subjects. Any one who apostatized to the 
Church of Rome or in any way aided others to aposta- 
tize, it was declared, should be held guilty of treason ; 
any one who said mass was to be subjected to a year's 
imprisonment and a fine of two hundred marks ; and 
any one present at such a service was hable to a year's 
imprisonment and a fine of a hundred marks. Twenty 
pounds a month constituted the penalty imposed on 
every one who absented himself from church.* 

Equally fierce legislation was resolved upon in conse- 
quence of another committee, of which I find that Mr. 
Philip Sidney was appointed a member on the 1st of 
February.f Its business was the planning of a bill 
against slanderous words, rumours, and other seditious 
practices opposed to the Queen's majesty. For a first 
offence of this nature the convicted miscreant was to be 
sent to the pillory and to lose his ears, and a second 
was made punishable as felony. 

On the 14th of February and many subsequent days 
Sidney shared in the handling of a remarl^able case of 
privilege. One Arthur Plall, a burgess for Grantham, 
angry at some proceedings of the previous session, had 
published a book abusing the Commons as a drunken 



* D'Ewes, p. 289 ] Journals of the House of Commons, vol. i. 
pp. 119, 120. 

t Journals, p. 121. 



9 
294 A MEMOIR OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. [Chap. x. 

body, given up to works of darkness. Thereat the 
House was reasonably incensed. Refusing to accept 
his submission, it expelled the unworthy member, 
imposed upon him a fine of five hundred marks, and 
committed him for six months to the Tower.* 

The rough, earnest temper shown by this EHzabethan 
ParHament, in common with those which preceded and 
those which followed it, is curious, but its present meeting 
was short. On the 18th of March the House was 
adjourned preparatory to a dissolution. Sidney's first 
trial of Parliamentary life — novel and instructive, and 
doubtless very entertaining to him — was of hardly two 
months' duration. 

Other matters however occurred to interest him. On 
the 16th of April there arrived at Dover a splendid 
embassage, headed by Francis of Bourbon, sent over to 
make arrangements respecting the Duke of Anjou's 
marriage with the Queen. 

The aspect of affairs was much altered since the time, 
more than a year ago, when Sidney had written his letter 
about this marriage to Queen Elizabeth. The large party 
of which he had been so conspicuous a member, and on 
behalf of which he had done his utmost to prevent the 
match, had not altered its judgment ; but it had ceased 
to publish the expression of disapproval. If Elizabeth 
was resolved upon the match, these men thought, no 
avowed opposition would be of any use ; nay, their 
arguments, repeated too often, would only irritate her 
and perhaps drive her more certainly to the very issue 

* D'Ewes, p. 291, &c. ; Journals, p. 126, &c. 



it. 26. ] THE QUEEN S INTENDED MAEEIIGE. 295 

which they dreaded. The only chance of averting it 
was by prudently submitting to her whim and keeping 
a watchful eye upon the progress of events, so as to be 
ready to make the best of any opportunity that might 
arise for furthering their wishes. Moreover, when all was 
said, this was as much a personal as a public matter. 
However they might disapprove of the marriage and 
think it harmful to the nation, the responsibility must 
rest with the Queen, who certainly had a right to choose 
any husband she liked. 

There was a measure of worldly wisdom in conclusions 
like these, with which a number of courtiers, Leicester 
being leader, persuaded themselves that it would be 
right to adopt a course whereby they would be re- 
instated in the royal favour ; and Sidney cannot be 
altogether defended for agreeing with them. He had 
special excuse, however, for acting thus, in that Hubert 
Languet entreated him to it, while another and still 
more trustworthy friend. Prince William of Orange, 
even expressed approval of the marriage and had Hking 
for Anjou. 

In the spring of 1581, therefore, there was no such 
show of discontent as had marked the opening months 
of 1580. The FrenchAmbassadors, proceeding to London 
by water, were very honourably received. Lord Burghley, 
the Earls of Sussex, Leicester, Bedford, and Lincoln, 
Sir Francis Walsingham, and Sir Christopher Hatton 
were appointed by her Majesty to confer with the Duke 
of Anjou's delegates respecting the terms of the 
intended marriage-contract. 

Sidney took a courtier's share in this business. He 



296 A MEMOIR OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. [Chap. X. 

and three others, the Earl of Arundel, Lord Windsor, 
and Fulke Greville, planned for the entertainment of 
the visitors a splendid exhibition of English prowess 
and of their own wit and valour. At that end of the 
Tilt-yard in Whitehall which was nearest to the Queen's 
window was to be erected a Fortress of Perfect Beauty, 
the fancied abode of Ehzabeth herself, and this fortress 
they, calling themselves the Four Foster Children of 
Desire, were to win by force of arms. The show was 
first announced on Sunday, the 1 6th of April, and her 
Majesty fixed the 24th for its enactment. But the 
meeting, for some reason or other several times post- 
poned, did not take place till Whit-Monday, the 15th of 
May. 

On that day everything was ready. By help of wood 
and canvass and paint, a veritable Fortress of Beauty 
was erected, with an artificial mound, suitable for war- 
like exercise, adjoining it. Presently the Four ap- 
proached. First came the Earl of Arundel, and he was 
followed by Lord Windsor, each of them gorgeously clad 
and largely attended. Next arrived Mr. Philip Sidney, 
not with so much magnificence as the other two, but 
certainly with splendour enough. Of his armour part 
was blue and the rest gilt. Besides the charger on 
which he sat, four spare horses richly caparisoned were 
led by as many pages. In his train there were also 
thirty gentlemen and yeomen, with four trumpeters, all 
dressed in cassock coats, caps, Venetian hose of yellow 
velvet, adorned with silver lace, and white buskins. On, 
the coat of each one of these attendants was a silver 
band, passing like a scarf over the shoulder and under 



it26. ] THE FOUE FOSTER CHILDREJT OF DESIEE. 297 

the arm, and showing, in both front and rear, the motto, 
Sic nos non nobis. Last rode Mr. Fulke Greville, wearing 
gilt armour, and with followers decked in tawny taffeta, 
which was lined with yellow sarcenet and adorned with 
gold loops and buttons, in tawny taffeta hats, and in 
yellow worsted stockings. The Four were thus accom- 
panied by a little army, amounting in all to more than 
two hundred men. 

Speeches were made and songs were sung by way 
of preface ; and of them we have fuller account than 
of the actual tournament. The challengers marched up 
and down the yard, and at length proceeded to run tilt, 
each one in his turn and each running six courses, 
against any who came to oppose them. Of opponents 
there were several. Mr. Henry Grey, Sir Thomas Perrot, 
Mr. Anthony Cooke, Mr. Thomas Ratcliffe, the four sons 
of Sir Francis Knollys, Mr. Ralph Bowes, and a dozen 
others presented themselves. It was an idle vanity on 
the part of the Four to propose resistance to so many, 
and as might have been foretold, before nightfall they 
were seriously discomfited. 

Next day, being Whit-Tuesday, they entered the 
yard in a chariot, looking very wearied and already 
half-overcome. More speeches were delivered, but now 
in a different tone, '' No confidence in themselves," it 
was said, " most unmatched Princess, before whom 
envy dieth, wanting all nearness of comparison to enter- 
tain it, and admiration is expressed, finding the scope 
of it void of conceivable limits, — no confidence in them- 
selves, nor any slight regarding of the force of your 
valiant knights, hath encouraged the Foster Children 



298 A MEMOIR OP SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. [Chap, x 

of Desire to make this day an inheritor of yesterday's 
action. They are violently borne whither Desire 
draweth, although they must confess (alas ! that yes- 
terday's brave onset should come to such a confession !) 
that they are not greatly companied with Hope, the 
common supplier of Desire's army ; so as now, from 
summoning this castle to yield, they are fallen lowly to 
beseech you to vouchsafe your eyes out of that impreg- 
nable fortress to behold what will fall out between them 
and your famous knights. Whence, though they be so 
overpassed with others' valour that already they could 
scarcely have been able to come hither if the chariot of 
Desire had not carried them, yet will they make this 
whole assembly witness so far their will, that sooner their 
souls shall leave their bodies than Desire shall leave their 
souls." 

Then they went to the tourney, shivering so many 
swords, and dealing so many lusty blows, that it seemed, 
says one who stood by, as if the Greeks were alive 
again and the Trojan war renewed. No party was 
spared, he adds, no estate excepted, but each knight 
strove to be the victor, at any rate in the favouring 
eyes of his mistress. 

Towards evening the sport ended. A boy wearing 
ash-coloured garments in token of submission, and with 
an olive-branch in his hand, approached the Queen, and 
humbly tendered an avowal that the Four Foster Chil- 
dren of Desire were utterly defeated in their essay 
against the Fortress of Perfect Beauty. The Queen gave 
praise and thanks to all, however — -to the vanquished 
as well as to the victors — for the pleasant sport which 



15S1. 
^t. 26 



'] PLAYINa AT WAR. 299 



they had caused, and for the great skill they had 
shown, and the whole company dispersed in very joyful 
state. ^' 

Defeat in such an unequal contest was no discredit to 
Sidney. Similar exercises of arms, though not gorgeous 
enough to be specially recorded, were often performed 
on Sundays after church-time ; and in these he was 
frequently successful. Of one such victory he has given 
the history in verse. 

** Having this day my liorse, my hand, my lance, 

Guided so well that I obtained the prize, 

Both by the judgment of the English eyes 
And of some sent from that sweet enemy France, 
Horsemen my skill in horsemanship advance, 

Townfolks my strength ; a dantier judge applies 

His praise to sleight, which from good use doth rise ; 
Some lucky wits impute it but to chance ; 
Others, because of both sides I do take 

My blood from them who did excel in this. 
Think Nature me a man of arms did make. 

How far they shoot awry ! The true cause is, 
Stella looked on, ajjd from her heavenly face 
Sent forth the beams which made so fair my race." f 

Sidney was thus zealously playing at war, when he 
received an invitation to take part in the real business 
of fighting. It came from Don Antonio, Prior of Crato, 
the natural son of a brother of King Henry the Fifth of 
Portugal. Henry had died without issue in 1579, and 

* The affair is fully described by Henry Goldwell, in a tract which 
has been reprinted by Mchols, Eoyal Fr ogresses, vol. ii. pp. 312 — 
329. 

t Astrophel and Stella, sonnet xli. 



300 A MEMOIR OP SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. r^i.Ar. x. 

there were seven competitors for the cro\Yn. Philip the 
Second of Spain, with no claim save his might, proved 
the successful one, his most formidable rival, however, 
being Don Antonio. Mobs shouted in Antonio's 
favour, and many foreigners were disposed to help him. 
At some previous time he had made the acquaintance of 
Sidney ; and to him he now wrote from Tunis, on the 
3rd of May, begging him to maintain the correspond- 
ence between them and to write often. He told him 
of the hopefulness of his cause and of the aid promised 
him by several gentlemen ; but, he added, " though 
many more should go, if I do not see you in the 
company, I shall say numerum non liabet ilia suum."'^ 
Of course Sidney did not accept the offer. Had the 
call been better worth attending to, he would hardly 
have chosen to quit England just now. But in this case 
there was nothing to tempt him. Don Antonio was a 
worthless fellow, and every candid man must have seen 
that he could not hope for any lasting success in a 
struggle with the King of Spain. He spent fifteen 
years in the vain hope of obtaining adequate help, in 
the end dying wretchedly at Paris, in 1595. 

Sidney remained in England. Generally he was at 
Court, though often family or friendly business took 
him out of town. In the course of the summer he 
appears, together with his uncle and his brother-in-law, 
the Earls of Leicester and Pembroke, to have spent a 
few days at Oxford, witnessing the public exercises 
with which, in those days, the scholars always enter- 

* Sidney Papers, vol. i. p. 294. 



^1^26. ] IN WANT OF MONEY. 301 

tained distinguished visitors. Among other amuse- 
ments, he saw the performance, by the fellows of his 
old college, Christ Church, of a Latin play written by 
William Gage, and entitled Meleager."^ 

He was in London and with the Court for some time 
previous to the 10th of October. On that day he wrote 
a very curious letter to Lord Burghley. 

"Right Honourable and very singular good Lord, 

"I was to liave waited on your Lordship at Cecil House, 
but there, understanding that your Lordship was gone to Theobald's, 
I thought it no reason to trouble your Lordship there, but am bold 
only with these few lines to remember me to your Lordship's good- 
ness. Yesterday her Majesty, at my taking my leave, said, against 
that I came up again, she would take some order for care of me 
therein. Her Majesty seemed then to like better of some present 
manner of relief than the expecting the office. Truly, Sir, so do I, 
too. But, being wholly out of comfort, I rather chose to have some 
token, that my friends might see I had not utterly lost my time : so, 
these do I leave it to your Lordship's good favour towards me. My 
suit is for lOOL a year in impropriations ; if not the one, then the 
other ; if neither, yet her Majesty's speedy answer will, both in 
respect of usury and other cumbers, be much better to me than delay ; 
which I am no bolder to desire of your Lordship than I will be ready 
to deserve it with my uttermost power, when so mean a matter may 
be commanded by you. And so, praying for your long and healthful 
life, I humbly take my leave. 

" Your Lordship's humbly at commandment, 

"Philip Sidney." f 

It seems, then, that Sidney — finding the gaieties of 
Court life too expensive to be easily met by the slender 

* Zouch, p. 186. This play of Meleager is chiefly memorable from 
the circumstance that Jeremy Collier, reading it and a prefatory letter 
of its author's to Doctor John Raynolds, was induced thereby to 
write his Short View of the Immorality and Profaneness of Stage Plays. 

t Murdin, Burghley Papers , p. .364. 



302 A MEMOIR OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. rcnxp. X. 

allowance which his father, never very rich and now 
especially poor, could afford him — was making earnest 
suit for some means of getting rid of the usury and 
other encumbrances to which he had been forced to 
have resort. He was probably successful ; for we know 
that, some time before his death, the Queen granted 
him a sinecure, worth a hundred and twenty pounds 
a-year, which, forty years afterwards, was conferred on 
George Herbert the poet.'"' At any rate, he appears 
just now to have been on very good terms with her 
Majesty. There is a brief letter, dated at Gravesend 
on the 10th of November, which shows not only that 
he was in the mood for paying her some graceful 
compHments, but also that he was serving her by the 
exercise of his ingenuity in the preparation of some 
scheme for secret writing. 

"Most gracious Sovereign, 

" This rude piece of paper shall presume, because of your 
Majesty's commandment, most humbly to present such a cypher as a 
little leisure could afford me. If there come any matter to my 
knowledge, the importance whereof shall deserve to be so masked, I 
will not fail, since your pleasure is my only boldness, to your own 
hands to recommend it. In the meantime, I beseach your Majesty 
will vouchsafe to read my heart in the course of my life ; and, though 
itself be but of a mean worth, yet to esteem it like a poor house well 
set. I most lowly kiss your hands, and pray to God your enemies 
may then only have peace when they are weary of knowing your 
force. 

" Yoiu: Majesty's most humble servant, 

"Philip Sidney. "f 



* Izaac Walton, Ufe of Mr. George Herbert (ed. 1827), p. 265. 
t Murdin, Burghley Papers, pp. 364, 365. 



ef 26 ] LANGUET's death-bed. 303 



In that letter there is graceful thought pleasantly 
worded. But I imagine Sidney's mood at this time, 
and through some months previously, was not alto- 
gether commendable. He was too often tempted to 
forget the stern calls of duty in that " false, fine, 
courtly pleasure'' which he deprecated in his better 
moments. It was not enough that, among courtiers, 
he was better than most — there was a spirit in him 
which required that he should live a life and pursue an 
end which could not be possible within the narrow 
limits of an idle, pleasure-loving Court. There was some- 
thing like a fulfilment of Languet's gloomy forebodings, 
— " wasting the springtime of life amid the formalities 
and indolence of a Court.'' Had his honest friend been 
able to watch him now, he would surely have off'ered 
some plainspoken, warning advice. 

But Languet was dead. He had lived his three- 
and-sixty years, full, to him at any rate, of num- 
berless sorrows, interspersed with but very few joys. 
In his last hours, as he lay at Antwerp, he was 
tenderly nursed by the wife of Phihp Du Plessis 
Mornay, a woman concerning whom nothing but sweet, 
rich praise is recorded. To her he said — what in less 
solemn tones he had often said before — that he had 
thus far struggled on through life in the hope of 
seeing, and even helping on, a reformation of which the 
world had grievous need ; but now that he saw how 
nations were steadily growing worse, he was only glad 
to leave it. He sent messages to his friends, especially 
to Du Plessis, who, he thankfully acknowledged, had 
sheltered him from destruction during the Saint Bar- 



•304 A MEMOIR OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. [Chap x 

tholomew Massacre at Paris, where they both were at 
the tirae, and who had ever since been one of his truest 
and wisest associates. Soon after that, on the 30th of 
September, he died. Wilham, Prince of Orange, 
headed the long troop of friends who followed him to 
the grave. 

To Sidney the loss was a very great one. During 
more than eight years, some of them years of perilous 
transition from youth to manhood, Languet had 
watched him with loving and anxious eyes. In every 
trouble and difficulty Languet had been to him a 
very kind adviser and a very willing helper. In- 
deed, he was almost too zealous in his protection. 
Timid for his young friend where he would himself 
have walked boldly, he sometimes hindered him from 
what it might have been right to do, and coaxed him 
into conduct which was safe rather than manly. But 
the faults of Languet's tenderness may well be forgotten 
in consideration of the good derived by Sidney from 
his friendship. Philip never spoke otherwise than in 
loving acknowledgment of his debt. And now espe- 
cially, when death had withdrawn their intercourse into 
the past, he felt how much he owed to Languet. He was 
at this time writing the Arcadia, a work not altogether 
in sympathy with Languet's strong Huguenot cha- 
racter ; but in it he took occasion to pause and offer 
just and graceful homage to his memory, 

" For clerkly reed, and hating what is naught. 

For faithful heart, clean hands, and mouth as true. 
\yith his sweet skill, my skilless yc^uth he drew, 
To have a feeling taste of Him that sits 
Beyond the heavens, far more beyond our wits. " 



ifk ] PETVATE AND PUBLIC TROUBLE. 305 

But in the busy world there was much to divert 
Sidney from his private grief. Now, more than ever, 
the talk of Court and people was about the Duke of 
Anjou. By the commissioners appointed in the spring 
to confer with the French ambassadors, terms of mar- 
riage had been prepared. These were not insignifi- 
cant, providing as they did, among other things, for 
the contingency of England being made subject to a 
king of France. Elizabeth herself seems to have been 
startled by them. In order to feel her way more 
surely, she had, in July, sent Sir Francis Walsingham 
across the Channel, to treat with King Henry of 
France respecting a league against Spain. Henry was 
willing to form a league, but much more anxious to get 
rid of his troublesome brother, and see him quietly 
lodged by the crown of England. Ehzabeth knew 
not what she wanted. Walsingham received from her 
all sorts of despatches, each one contradicting its pre- 
decessor, and after three or four months' absence, he 
returned to London with nothing done. " "When Her 
Majesty, '^ he said, in a letter to Burghley, " is pressed 
to the marriage, then she seemeth to affect a league ; 
and when the league is yielded to, then she liketh 
better a marriage ; and when thereupon she is moved 
to assent to marriage, then she hath recourse to the 
league ; and when the motion for the league, or any 
request is made for money, then Her Majesty return- 
eth to the marriage." "^^ 

Affairs being in this fluctuating state, the Duke 

* Digges, Complete Ambassador^ p. 408. 



306 A MEMOIR OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. [Chap. X 

thought it best to come and plead his own cause. 
Arriving on the 1st of November, he was gaily enter- 
tained for at least three months. In the enter- 
tainments, however, Sidney appears not to have taken 
much part. I infer that just now he avoided the 
Court as much as was possible. He was at Wilton on 
the 17th of December, and on that day he sent a 
friendly letter to Sir Francis Walsingham : — 

"Eight Honourable Sir, 

"The coTintry affords no other stuff for letters but humble 
salutations, which humbly and heartily I send to yourself, my good 
lady, and my exceeding like to be good friend. I will be bold to add 
the beseeching you to favour this bearer, that he may have some 
consideration for the packet he brought, because belonging to my 
brother Robert, a younger brother of so youngly a fortunate family 
as the Sidneys, I am sure, at the least have very vehement evidences, 
that he is more stored with discourses than with money, and I will no 
further trouble your Honour but take my leave and pray for you. 
" Your Honour's humble at commandment, 

"Philip Sidney."* 

Robert, aged about nineteen, had at this time nearly 
completed the three years' stay upon the Continent, 
which he had commenced under the care of Hubert 
Languet. Languet's later letters to Philip are full of 
alternate praises and complaints concerning the high- 
spirited lad, now evincing the strange character which, 
without much repetition of his brother's noble nature, 
was to help him to wealth and fame as the second Earl 
of Leicester. The purport of the communication from 
him of which Phihp here spoke is not recorded. 

* State Paper Office, MSS., Domestic Correspondence^ Elizabeth, 
vol. cl. ISTo. 85. 



m^27. ] SIR FRANCIS WALSINGHAM AIs^D HIS DAUGHTER. 307 

But to US the letter is chiefly noticeable as an indica- 
tion of the solid friendship maintained between Sidney 
and A^alsingham. Begun more than nine years ago, at 
the time of the Saint Bartholomew massacre, it had 
steadily continued and increased. Between them there 
was eighteen years' difference in age, but in all else there 
was substantial sympathy. Both men nobly strove to 
live honestly in the midst of courtly hollo wness. Both 
watched with intense interest, and did all they possibly 
could to aid, the battle of freedom, now being waged in 
the Low Countries, against Spanish and Romish thral- 
dom. Both were famous for their generous patronage 
of literature and learning. We shall presently see their 
friendship issuing in one very important event. 
Perhaps, indeed, the event is foreshadowed in this 
letter. It is not over fanciful to identify the lady here 
alluded to, as " my exceeding like to be good friend,'' 
with Fanny Walsingham, presently to become not only 
friend but wife to Sir Philip Sidney. But this was not 
yet. Fanny was now hardly more than thirteen years 
old, and Stella was not so soon forgotten. 

Philip, moreover, had much else to think about when 
he returned to share the gaieties of the Court, now 
doubly gay because the Queen's French suitor was in 
attendance. 

If Sidney was with the Queen at Christmas, he 
probably did not greatly enjoy her festivities. Perhaps 
there is some sign of his dissatisfaction in trhe circum- 
stance, that on the ensuing New Year's day he made 
no present to the Queen. Of course several gifts were 
tendered by Anjou ; one of them was a shekel of gold, 

X 2 



308 A MEMOIR OF SIR THILIP SIDNEY. [Chap. X 

with the motto Serviet eternum dulcis quern torquet 
Eliza ; another was a gold padlock hanging to a gold 
chain ; a third consisted of a bunch of gold flowers 
with gems for petals."' 

There can be no doubt that the Duke, ugly in body, 
but far uglier in mind and heart — a man of whom his 
sister, Queen Margaret of Navarre, had not too harshly 
said, that, " if fraud and cruelty were to be banished from 
the earth, there was in him a sufficient stock from which 
it could be replenished " — was, after her fashion, really 
loved by Queen Elizabeth. When he departed from 
her, she thus expressed her trouble : — 

" I grieve, and dare not show my discontent ; 

I love, and yet am forced to seem to hate ; 
I do, yet dare not seem T ever meant ; 

I seem stark mute, yet inwardly do prate ; 
I am, and not ; I freeze, and yet am burned ; 
Since from myself my other self I turned. 

" My care is like my shadow in the sun ; 

Follows me flying, flies when I pursue it, 
Stands and lies by me, doth what I have done ; 

His too familiar care doth make me rue it : 
!N"o means I find to rid him from my breast. 
Till by the end of things it be suppressed. 

'* Some gentler passions slide into my mind. 
For I am soft and made of melting snow ; 
Or be more cruel, Love, and so be kind. 

Let me or float or sink, be high or low ; 
Or let me live with some more sweet content. 
Or die, and so forget what love e'er meant. "f 

The tearful parting occurred in February, 1582. As 

* Nichols, JRoyal Progresses, vol. ii. p. 387. 

t Ibid., p. 346. From a MS. in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. 



At%.^ A HOLIDAY AT ANTWERP. 309 

a mark of respect for the Duke, Elizabeth appointed 
several of her chief courtiers to accompany him to the 
Low Countries. The Earl of Leicester, Lord Hunsden, 
and Lord Howard took the lead, and with them were 
Mr. Philip Sidney, Mr. Walter Raleigh, Mr. Fulke 
Greville, Mr. Edward Dyer, and a host of others. This 
was Sidney's third journey to the Continent, but he had 
never yet made much stay in the Netherlands. 

The Duke left London on the first of the month, the 
Queen herself going with him as far as Canterbury. He 
then proceeded to Flushing, where he was welcomed by 
Prince William of Orange, who professed great delight 
at his arrival. Deputies from all the neighbouring states 
and cities met and honoured him as the bridegroom 
elect of the Queen of England. Everywhere there was 
great festivity. 

Reaching Antwerp on the 1.9 th of February, the son 
of Catherine de' Medici became the hero in shows of 
unexampled splendour. Being led to a spacious theatre, 
and there elected Duke of Brabant, he pledged him- 
self to deliver the States from the oppression and 
tyranny of the Spaniards ; to rule them according to 
their customary laws and privileges ; yea, even to the 
shedding of his own blood or the giving up of his own life. 
He then took the prescribed oaths, the Prince of Orange 
putting on him the crimson mantle and crimson bonnet, 
venerable tokens of the sacredness of his office ; and 
after that other titles and honours were conferred. 
These things done, the company passed from the theatre 
into the open street. There they met a damsel per- 
sonating the Maid of Antwerp, who came in a Chariot 



310 A MEMOIR OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. IChap. x. 

of Alliance and brought the keys of the town to place 
at his feet. On her right side was Religion, dressed like 
a sibyl, and holding in one hand an open book, entitled 
The Law and the Gospel, in the other one marked God's 
Word. On the maiden's left was Justice, carrying a 
balance labelled Yea and Nay. Before her was Concord, 
whose target displayed a crowned sceptre with two little 
snakes and two tender doves enclosed in a garland of 
oHve. On one side of Concord walked Wisdom, on the 
other Force. Then there w^ere some scriptural shows. 
Samuel taking the kingdom from Saul and giving it to 
David typified the transference of the States from the 
wicked rule of Spain to the wise, strong government of 
the Duke of Anjou and Brabant. In the intimacy of 
David and Jonathan was found illustration of the new 
alhance between the Duke and Queen EHzabeth. These 
having been seen, there were numberless other spec- 
tacles, exhibiting all sorts of nymphs and virtues, and 
in which naked men and gorgeously apparelled dames 
took part.''^" 

But it all came to an end. The thunder of applause 
died out, the glitter of compliment faded away ; and 
presently the Duke of Anjou gave to all the w^orld, 
even to Queen Elizabeth, undeniable proof that, if he 
had more folly than comported with the mock dignity 
of a proper knave, he was far too knavish to pass for 
a mere fool. 

This happened in Sidney's lifetime, and therefore 

* The whole is detailed in a tract which Mchols, that prince of 
spectacle-loving antiquarians, has reprinted in his Royal Progresses, 
vol. ii. 



15S2 
^t. 2 



7.] GAY SCENES AND SOBER THOUGHTS. 311 



soon enough for him to hear every one acknowledge the 
wisdom of his former strictures upon Anjou. But, 
perhaps, even now, in the midst of these very splendours 
that he was witnessing, he saw abundant confirmation 
of all he had said. I imagine that, fond as he was of 
the spectacles which sorted well with the temper of the 
age, he was not altogether happy now. From first to 
last he had heartily disapproved of the Duke^s schemes^ 
and he would rather have welcomed his disgrace than 
all this show of what seemed promise of success. Some- 
times, even in this giddy Antwerp, he must have turned 
aside from the gaiety and have walked sadly by the 
grave of Hubert Languet, not yet five months dead. 
What substance would he have seen under these shows ! 
But Sidney was not long in the Netherlands. The 
Antwerp shows being over, he at once returned with 
the rest, and by the 28th of March he was again at 
Court. On that day he wrote a letter to Lady Kitson, 
whose husband, Sir Thomas, had fallen into great 
disgrace on account of his Catholic creed and of his 
friendship with the suspected Duke of Norfolk. Sidney 
said that he could procure no satisfactory promise of 
pardon, but, he added, " I assure you. Madam, upon my 
faith, I dealt carefully and earnestly, owing to a par- 
ticular duty, unto Sir Thomas, which I will never fail to 
show to my uttermost ; and if otherwise have been 
thought, I have been mistaken ; and if said, the more 
wronged." He hoped, however, that his efforts would 
soon lead to the easing of her great trouble.'''" 

* Gage, History and Antiquities of Hengrave in Suffolk (1822), 
pp. 182, 183. 



312 A MEMOIR OF Sill PHILIP SIDNEY. LChap. x. 

Of the beginning and end of that friendly act of 
Sidney's we are ignorant. But it helps us to under- 
stand his temper at this time. He used his position 
near the Queen for doing as much good as he was able, 
both to individuals and to the State. Now, much 
more than in the previous summer, he was trying to 
act up to Languet's notion of the duties that devolved 
upon him. Many things conspired to bring about this 
change, although its full issue was as yet by no means 
apparent. 

He was still a courtier. Very often in attendance 
on the Queen, at Windsor, or Hampton Court, or 
Richmond, or Oatlands, or Nonsuch, or Greenwich, or 
some other of the royal abodes, he now stood high in 
the favour of her Majesty. Unable to discern the 
noblest parts of his nature, she liked him for his witty, 
sensible, and learned talk ; and yet more, perhaps, for 
his good looks and graceful bearing. Sidney was a 
handsome man. " He was not only an excellent wit," 
writes that pleasant gossip, John Aubrey, " but 
extremely beautiful. He much resembled his sister ; 
but his hair was not red '^ — whence we are to infer that 
the Countess of Pembroke's hair was red — " but a httle 
inclining, namely, a dark amber colour. If I were to 
find a fault in it, methinks 'tis not masculine enough ; 
yet he was a person of great courage." 

A person of great courage assuredly was Philip 
Sidney, albeit his valour was at this time too much 
shown in the breaking of lances at the tournament, and 
in the winning; of smiles at Court. If we are to credit 
the report of his contemporaries, every gallant gentle- 



iflV.] THE IDOL OF THE COURT. 313 

man vied with him in all the courtly exercises of the 
day, and every noble lady strove to earn his comph- 
ments. " For," says Spenser, in the exquisite pastoral 
which, notwithstanding its framework of fiction, may 
be taken as holding no more than a truthful picture of 
•its hero, — 

" For, from the time that first the nymph, his mother, 
Him forth did bring and taught her lambs to feed, 
A slender swain, excelling far each other 

In comely shape, like her that did him breed, 
He grew up fast in goodness and in grace. 
And doubly fair wax'd both in mind and face. 

' ' Which daily more and more he did augment 

With gentle usage and demeanour mild, 
That all men's hearts with secret ravishment 

He stole away and willingly beguiled. 
Nor spite itself, that aU good things doth spill. 
Found aught in him that she could say was ill. 

" His sports were fair, his joyance innocent, 

Sweet without sour and honey without gall : 

And he himself seemed made for merriment. 
Merrily masqueing both in bower and hall. 

There was no pleasure not delightful play 

When Astrophel so ever was away. 

" For he could pipe, and dance, and carol sweet. 
Amongst the shepherds in their shearing feast ; 
As summer's lark, that with her song doth greet 
The dawning day, forth coming from the east. 
And lays of love he also could compose : 
Thrice happy she whom he to praise did choose. 

" Full many maidens often did him woo 

Them to vouchsafe amongst his rhymes to name. 

Or make for them, as he was wont to do 

For her that did his heart with love inflame : 

For which they promised to dight for him 

Gay chapelets of flowers and garlands trim. 



314 A MEMOIR OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. FChap. x. 

' ' And many a nympli both of the wood and brook, 

Soon as his oaten pipe began to thrill, 
Both crystal wells and shady groves forsook 

To hear the charms of his enchanting skill, 
And brought him presents, — flowers if it were prime, 
Or mellow fruit if it were harvest time. 

*' But he for none of them did care a whit. 

Yet wood gods for them often sighed sore, — 
Nor for their gifts, unworthy of his wit, 

Yet not unworthy of the country's store : 
For one alone he cared, for one he sigh't 
His life's desire and his dear love's delight." * 

Sidney being such an one, it Tvas natural that the 
royal smile should beam on him very brightly. Eliza- 
beth ^Yas too old to coquet much with him, as she 
delighted to coquet with his uncle Leicester ; but she 
liked to have him near her, and to use great freedom 
with him. He was her Philip, just as, long ago, the 
Lord Deputy, his father, had been her Harry. 

Of the cares and sighs, the desire and delight which 
came to him in the course of his passion for Lady 
Rich, Sidney has told us much in his Astrophel and 
Stella: — 

" Loving in truth, and fain my love to show, 

That she, dear she ! might take some pleasure of my pain. 
Pleasure might cause her read, reading might make her know. 

Knowledge might pity win, and pity grace obtain ; 
I sought fit words to paint the blackest face of woe. 

Studying inventions fine, her wits to entertain. 
Oft turning others' leaves to see if thence would flow 

Some fresh and fruitful showers upon my sun-burnt brain. 



Astrophel, lines 13 — 5-: 



It^Sr.] Stella's queei^^ship. 315 

But words came halting forth, wanting invention's stay ; 

Invention, Nature's child, blest step-dame Study's blows. 
And others' feet still seemed but strangers in my way. 

Thus, great with child to speak, and helpless in my throes, 
Biting my truant pen, beating myself for spite, ^ 

' Fool !' said my Muse to me, ' look in thy heart and write !'" * 

It is clear that Sidney did not ahvajs look simply 
into his heart before writing. In his Astrophel and Stella 
there is plenty of intellectual exercise, there are. plenty 
of overstrained compHments and fantastical expressions, 
giving evidence that its author had often turned over the 
leaves which spoke of Petrarch's Laura or of Surrey's 
Geraldine. But in all the sonnets there is reflection of 
his varying temperament, and from many may be drawn 
intelligence as to the history of his thoughts. Thus 
vehemently he reproached himself for having, in former 
days, let shp the opportunity of chaste union with the 
lady of his love : — 

" I might — unhappy word ! O me ! I might, 

And then would not, or coald not, see my bliss ; 
Till now, wrapped in a most infernal night, 

I find how heavenly day — wretch ! — I did miss. 
Heart, rend thyself ; thou dost thyself but right : 

No lovely Paris made thy Helen his : 
No force, no fraud, robbed thee of thy delight ; 

Nor fortune of thy fortune author is. 
But to myself myself did give the blow, 

While too much wit, forsooth, so troubled me. 
That I respects for both our sakes must show, — 

And yet could not, by rising morn, foresee 
How fair a day was near. punished eyes ! 
That I had been more foolish, or more wise !"t 



* Astrophel and Stella, sonnet i. 
t Ibid., sonnet xxxiii. 



816 A MEMOIR OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. [Chap. x. 

Now he resolved he would not be backward in 
tendering his homage, but, — 

" What may words say, or wliat may words not say, 

"Where truth itself must speak like flattery 1 
Within what bounds can one his liking stay, 

Where nature doth with infinite agree ? 
What Nestor's counsel can my flames allay, 

Since reason's self doth blow the coal on me ? 
And ah ! what hope that hope should once see day, 

Where Cupid is sworn page to chastity ? 
Honour is honoured, that thou dost possess 

Him as thy slave ; and now long needy fame 

Doth even grow Rich, naming my Stella's name : 
Wit learns in thee perfection to express : 

JSTot thou by praise, but praise in thee is raised ; 

It is a praise to praise when thou art praised."* 

Always abundant in compliment, the lover liked 
especially to make playful use of his lady's name. Here 
is an instance, not bespeaking so much wretchedness as 
we saw ere now : — 

" My mouth doth water, and my breast doth swell. 
My tongue doth itch, my thoughts in labour be ; 
Listen then, lordings, with good ear to me, 

For of my life I must a riddle tell. 

Towards Aurora's Court a nymph doth dwell, 
Rich in all beauties which man's eye can see. 
Beauties so far from reach of words, that we 

Abuse her praise, saying she doth excel ; 

Rich in the treasure of deserved renown ; 
Rich in the riches of a royal heart ; 

Rich in those gifts which give the eternal crown ; 
AVho, though most rich in these and every part 

Which make the patents of sure worldly bliss. 

Hath no misfortune but that Rich she is." f 



* Astropliel and Stella, sonnet xxxv. 
t Ibid., sonnet xxxvii. 



m!~2^Si.\ A couetiee's PEEPLEXITIES. 317 

Without question Stella liked such praise. There 
was no prudery or delicacy fashionable at Court, by 
the rules of which it could be condemned. If Sidney 
and Spenser may be credited, the only fault found in 
him was that he paid his vows to one alone. We have 
read Spenser's statement. Thus the lover exclaims : — 

" Because I breafhe not love to every one, 
Nor do not use set colours for to wear, 
Nor nourish special locks of vowed hair, 
Nor give each speech a full point of a groan, 
The courtly nymphs, acquainted with the moan 
Of them, who, in their lips, Love's standard bear, 
' What, he ! ' say they of me, * now dare I swear, 
He cannot love : no, no ; let him alone ! ' " * 

Sidney would gladly have been left alone, he tells in 
other sonnets ; but there was no peace for him at Court : 
in no way could he be free from the persecution of fair 
ladies who would be spoken gaily to, and who, at the 
least, expected pleasant answers to their idle questions 
and all their foohsh-wise " discourse of courtly tides.'' 
They misconstrued his silence and took umbrage at his 
disregard of them : — 

" Because I oft, in dark abstracted guise. 

Seem most alone in greatest company, 

With dearth of words or answers quite awry 
To them that would make speech of speech arise — 
They deem, and of their doom the rumours flies 

That poison foul of bubbling pride doth lie 

So in my swelling breast, that only I 
Fawn on myself and others do despise. " f 



* Astro'phel and Stella, sonnet liv. 
f Ibid., sonnet xxvii. 



318 A MEMOIK OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. [Chap x. 

From all this playful banter a plain meaning is 
to be extracted. Sidney was moving about in these 
courtly circles, was charming all by his handsome figure 
and witty speech ; the very frequency of his silence 
and his often haughty bearing only added to the interest 
with which he was regarded by Queen and courtier. 
But in this life he had Httle real satisfaction. Whether 
he fluttered about and dashed himself against the golden 
bars, or sang sweet notes which every one rejoiced to 
hear, he was as a caged bird still. 

*' The curious wits, seeing dull pensiveness 

Bewray itself in my long-settled eyes. 

Whence these same fumes of melancholy rise 
With idle pains and missing aim do guess. 
Some that know how my spring I did address, 

Deem that my muse some fruit of knowledge plies ; 

Others, because the Prince my service tries. 
Think that I think State errors to redress : 
But harder judges judge ambition's rage, 

Scourge of itself, still climbing slippery place, 
Holds my young brain captive in golden cage. 

O fools, or over-wise, alas ! the race 
Of all my thoughts hath neither stop nor start, 

But only Stella's eyes and Stella's heart. " * 

Philip might well exclaim, "AlasV^ He knew quite 
well that this career of gaiety, this surrendering of his 
manly eloquence to the gratification of a vain and praise- 
loving Queen, this devotion of himself to an unworthy 
love-passion, were not the work in life which he was 
appointed to fulfil. He ought to be doing just what the 
curious wits in sport accused him of contemplating. 

* Astrophel and Stellay sonnet xxiii. 



^t 25-27. J A NOBLE DISCONTENT. 319 

The seed which he himself had planted in his youth 
ought to be blossoming into wholesome fruit of know- 
ledge, instead of this showy but poisonous nightshade 
of mere courtly pleasure. There were State errors in 
abundance to be redressed, and he had peculiar fitness 
for redressing them. Why was he not at his work? No 
wonder he was pensive and melancholy, often bitterly 
chagrined. 

" With what sharp checks I in myself am spent, 

When into reason's audit I do go ; 

And by just 'compts myself a bankrupt know 
Of all those goods which Heaven to me hath lent ; 
Unable quite to pay even Nature's rent 

'Which unto it by birthright I do owe ; 

And, which is worse, no good excuse can show, 
But that my wealth I have most idly spent ! 
My youth doth waste, my knowledge brings forth toyfi, 

My wit doth strive those passions to defend, 
Which for reward spoil it with vain annoys. 

I see my coirrse to lose myself doth bend ; 
I see, and yet no greater sorrow take 
Than that I love no more for Stella's sake." * 

But Stella's sovereignty was presently to come to an 
end. In language like that last quoted, we see evidence 
of the battle now waging. And it was not only against 
her tyranny that Sidney was rebelling, he was also 
struggling with what he knew to be a weak part of his 
own character. Liking well to be admired, he was 
often tempted to enchain the nobler parts of his 
nature, and please the Court which sued to him for 
pleasure, by becoming such a willing wearer of its 

"^ Astrophel and Stella, sonnet xviii. 



320 A MEMOIR OP SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. [Chap. X. 

chains as his uncle the Earl of Leicester had been for 
years, as Sir Christopher Hatton now was, and as the 
young Earl of Essex was already beginning to be. But 
he fought against this temptation, and from the fighting 
there was to issue even nobler victory than could be 
bought by death upon the field of Zutphen. 



CHAPTER XL 



AUTHORSHIP AS COUETIER. 

1580—1582. 



■^His leisure as a courtier Philip Sidney occupied in 
writing two books, not more worthy of note for the 
place they hold in literary history, than as illustrations 
of their author's character. " If his purpose had been 
to leave his memory in books,'' said the friend who 
knew him best, "I am confident, in the right use of 
logic, philosophy, history, poesy, nay even in the most 
ingenious of mechanical arts, lie would have shown 
such traits of a searching and judicious spirit, as the 
professors of every faculty would have striven no 
less for him than the Seven Cities did to have Homer 
of their sept. But the truth is, his end was not 
writing, even while he wrote, but both his wit and 
understanding bent upon his heart to make himself and 
others, not in words or opinion, but in life and action, 
good and great. "^' 

Yet, as in the world of politics, his courtly chains re- 
strained him from attainment of the high and useful 
position for which he was most fit, so in the world of 
letters he was not yet able to do work as valuable or to 

* Fulke Greville, Life. 



322 A MEMOIR OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. [Cuap. XL 

exercise an influence as wholesome, as in later years. 
The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia, albeit the ofi'spring 
of strong brotherly love, shows plainly, in its style and 
purport, that it was the work of an Ehzabethan courtier; 
and in Astrophel and Stella there is yet clearer evidence 
of the bondage to which the poet's noblest faculties were 
subject. 

Sidney wrote The Arcadia, as we have seen, by his 
sister's wish. " You desired me to do it," he said in 
dedication, " and your desire to ray heart is an absolute 
commandment.'' Perhaps the Countess of Pembroke 
merely urged upon him the employment of his mind in 
authorship ; perhaps the whole first plan of the book 
was of her suggestion. At any rate, it was under- 
taken and continued not more for her brother's own 
pastime than for her amusement ; " for severer eyes it 
is not, being but a trifle, and that triflingly handled." 
The first portion was written under her roof; the rest, 
penned after Sidney's return to Court, was sent down 
to her, piece by piece, as the sheets were written. And 
for even that latter part the inspiration seems to have 
come most fi^eely in the neighbourhood of Wilton. 
" When he was writing his Arcadia," we learn from 
Aubrey, " he was wont to take his table-book out of his 
pocket, and write down his notions as they came into 
his head, as he was hunting on Sarum's pleasant plains.""^^ 
In the elaboration of his w^ork, however, he evidently 
received much influence from the Court in which he 

* " My great-nncle, Mr. T. Brown, remembered him," says Aubrey 
in support of his gossip. 



^t!'25-27:] THE OEIGIK OF THE ARCADIA. 323 

gaily moved, and the literary Areopagus to which he 
may still have frequently resorted. 

To some extent I imagine the Arcadia owed its 
existence to John Lyly, author of EiipJiues. Lyly was 
a year or two older than Sidney, though not matri- 
culated at Oxford till about the date of the other's 
removal from the University. He commenced sys- 
tematic attendance upon Queen Ehzabeth, however, in 
the year of Sidney's return from Germany, and then 
the two must often have met. But they were of diffe- 
rent tastes in literature, and of different parties at 
Court. Lyly's patron was the Earl of Oxford, and he 
pandered too much to that nobleman's love of foreign 
fashions in life and speech. His lot was a hard one, 
for after years of humble suit for employment, the post 
of Master of the Revels being the object of his ambition, 
he thus described the issue in a letter to the Queen : 
'•' Thirteen years your Highness's servant, but yet 
nothing : twenty friends that, though they say they 
will be sure, I find them sure to be slow : a thousand 
hopes, but all nothing : a hundred promises, but yet 
nothing. Thus, casting up the inventory of my friends, 
hoj5es, promises, and times, the summa totalis amounteth 
to just nothing. My last will is shorter than mine in- 
ventory ; but three legacies, — patience to my creditors, 
melancholy without measure to my friends, and beggary 
without shame to my family."'^ 

Lyly's greatest work, and one far too much abused 
when not wholly shghted, was EitpJiues : the Aiiatomij 

* Lilly, Dramatic Worksj ed. Fairliolt, vol. i. p. six. 

Y 2 



324 A MEMOIR OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. [Chap. XI. 

of Wit. It appeared in 1579, and had for its theme 
the story of a young gentleman, who quitting his home 
in Athens to visit Naples, gave occasion for much witty 
and some very earnest writing concerning all that he 
did, and saw, and thought. But the wit was of the kind 
which, taking its name from this very book, is known as 
Euphuism, and the author often fell into the same vices 
of style which he essayed to ridicule. In the book there 
was real worth, which Sidney must have seen and ac- 
knowledged ; but he could not fail also to see its 
weaker points. He knew that he could do better. I 
have no doubt that the reading of Euplmes in 1579 
led him many steps towards the writing of The Arcadia 
in 1580. 

For the style and the subject of his book Sidney 
found in EngHsh literature no model. But in the works 
of some southern authors there were suggestions which 
he adopted. In his youth he had read diligently the 
Ethiopic History of HeKodorus, lately translated out of 
the Greek by Thomas Underdown, and he afterwards 
praised the old novehst for " his sugared invention of 
that picture of love in Theagenes and Chariclea."* 
HeHodorus doubtless incHned him to introduce a heroic 
element into his work ; but its pastoral structure was 
evidently due to the recollection of Sannazzaro's Italian 
Arcadia, first printed at Milan in 1502. During the 
fifteenth century pastoral romances, most popular in 
Portugal, had been abundantly written ; but Sannazzaro 
was the first man of real genius who adopted this mode 

* The Defence of Foesie (ed. 1829), p. 72. 



^f25-27;] ^OR^ RUNNEKS OF THE ARCADIA. 325 

of composition. He wrote in a style which was simple, 
flowing, rapid, and harmonious ; often too florid and dif- 
fuse, but with honest effort to restore to Italian the polish 
and purity introduced by Petrarch.* Sidney studied 
this work, and probably many others which appeared 
in imitation of it. To George of Montemayor, the 
Spanish precursor of Cervantes, however, his debt was 
largest. Out of this writer's Diana, published a few 
years previously, he had already translated a couple of 
fragments in verse, and he seems to have been much 
pleased with its laboured beauty of style, its intricacy 
of plot, and its richness of imagination. Yet The 
Arcadia diff'ered essentially from alP its predecessors. 
In every sense an original work, the beautiful thoughts 
with which it was filled were altogether Sidney's own. 

For heroes he painted two cousins, Musidorus, Prince 
of Thessalia, and Pyrocles, Prince of Macedon ; between 
whom there was such notable friendship "as made 
them more like than the likeness of all other virtues, 
and made them more near one to the other than the 
nearness of their blood could aspire unto." Pyrocles, 
being by three or four years the younger, showed rever- 
ence, full of love, to Musidorus, and Musidorus had a 
delight as full of love in Pyrocles. All that the elder 
knew he rejoiced to teach to the younger, and the 
younger cared to learn of none so much as of the elder. 
Thus living together from childhood, they grew to be 
equal in everything, and superior, as it seemed, to all 
others in the world. 

* Salfi, cited by H^iUam iu liis Introduction to the Literature of 
Europe (5tli ed.), vol. i., pp. 2G5, 266. 



326 A MEMOIR OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. IChap. XL 

When Musidorus was about twenty years of age, it 
was thought right that they should travel, and with 
that intent they left their Thessahan home. But before 
very long they were shipwrecked and separated. Musi- 
dorus, by good chance, being beaten by the waves on to 
that edge of th^ Laconian shore which is opposite to 
the island of Cithera, was rescued by two generous 
shepherds, Strephon and Claius, who brought back 
warmth and vigour to his almost lifeless body. At his 
intercession they took boat and sought to recover his 
friend. The attempt, however, was vain, and Musi- 
dorus in his grief would have killed himself, had not the 
shepherds stayed: his hand, and persuaded him to go 
with them to the residence of Kalander, a gentle and 
noble man, whose hospitable and upright dealing caused 
all to love him, and who, if any could, would be able to 
comfort and advise the stranger. 

Ere long they set out. " The third day after, in the 
time that the morning did strow roses and violets in 
the heavenly floor against the coming of the sun, the 
nightingales — striving one with the other which could 
in most dainty variety recount their wrong-caused 
sorrow — made them put off their sleep, and rising from 
under a tree, which that night had been their paviHon, 
they went on their journey, which by-and-by welcomed 
Musidorus's eyes, wearied with the wasted soil of Laco- 
nia, with delightful prospects. There were hills, 
which garnished their proud heights with stately trees ; 
humble valHes, whose base estate seemed comforted 
with the presence of silver rivers ; meadows enamelled 
with all sorts of eye-pleasing flowers ; thickets which, 



1580— 15S2 
JEt. 25- 



2?:] ARCADIAN BEAUTIES. 327 



being lined with most pleasing shade, were witnessed 
so too by the cheerful disposition of many well-tuned 
birds ; each pasture stored with sheep feeding with 
sober security, while the pretty lambs with bleating 
oratory craved the dam's comfort ; here a shepherd's 
boy piping as though he should never be old ; there a 
young shepherdess knitting, and withal singing — and it 
seemed that her voice comforted her hands to work, and 
her hands kept time to her voice-music. As for the 
houses of the country, — for many houses came under 
their eye, — they were all scattered, no two being one 
by the other, — yet not so far off as that it barred 
mutual succour ; a show, as it were, of an accompanible 
solitariness and of a civil wildness.'' 

Such was Arcadia. Next we have a description of 
Kalander's abode, Sidney's ideal of a house. "The 
house itself was built of fair and strong stone, not affect- 
ing so much any extraordinary kind of fineness, as an 
honourable representing of a firm statehness. The 
lights, doors, and stairs, rather directed to the use of 
the guest than the eye of the artificer, and yet, as the 
one chiefly heeded, so the other not neglected. Each 
place handsome without curiosity, and homely without 
loathsomeness, not so dainty as not to be trod on, nor 
yet slubbered up with good fellowship ; all more lasting 
than beautiful, but that the consideration of the exceed- 
ing lastingness made the eye believe it was exceeding 
beautiful. The servants, not so many in number, as 
cleanly in apparel and serviceable in behaviour, testify- 
ing even in their countenances that their master took 
as well care to be served as of them that did serve.'' 



328 A MEMOIR OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. [CcAr. xr. 

In that way the story opens. Musidorus — who intro- 
duced himself as Palladius, and spoke of his friend 
Pyrocles as Daiphantus — became an inmate of Kalander's 
house, and the kind treatment of his host did much to 
deaden his sorrow and to fill him with hopeful, happy 
thoughts. The good old man, on the other hand, felt a 
strong fatherly love for the youth, finding in him " a mind 
of most excellent composition, a piercing wit quite void 
of ostentation, high erected thoughts seated in a heart of 
courtesy, an eloquence as sweet in the uttering as it was 
slow to come to the uttering, and a behaviour so noble 
as gave a majesty to adversity/' Thus loved, Musidorus 
thought that he wanted nothing to complete his enjoy- 
ment save the presence of his friend. Soon he was to 
find him. ^ 

News came that Kalander's son CHtophon, joining in 
the Lacedemonian war against the Helots, had been 
made prisoner. The father was so overcome with grief 
that he could do nothing. But Musidorus, anxious for 
adventure, and anxious to make some return for his 
host's kindness towards him, gathered an army of Arca- 
dians and went against the servile foes. A long and 
deadly battle ensued. Musidorus, brave himself to des- 
peration, saw with astonishment the wonderful bravery 
of the captain of the Helots, and the captain had like 
wonder about Musidorus. " It was hard to say whether 
he more liked his doings, or misliked the effect of his 
doings." It could not but be that two such heroes 
should meet and try each other's strength. " Their 
courage was guided with skill, and their skill was armed 
with courage ; neither did their hardness darken their 



m°2^-2?:] MUSIDORUS AND PYKOCLES. 329 

wit, nor their wit cool their hardness ; both vahant, as 
men despising death ; both confident, as men despising 
to be overcome ; yet doubtful by their present feehng, 
and respectful by what they had already seen. Their 
feet steady, their hands diKgent, their eyes watchful, 
and their hearts resolute. The parts either not armed 
or weakly armed were well known, — and, according to 
the knowledge, should have been sharply visited, but 
that the answer was as quick as the objection. The 
smart bred rage, and the rage bred smart again, till 
both sides beginning to wax faint, and rather desirous 
to die accompanied, than hopeful to live victorious, the 
captain of the Helots, with a blow whose violence grew 
of fury, not of strength, or of strength proceeding of 
fury, struck Musidorus upon the side of the head, that 
he reeled astonished ; and withal the helmet fell off, he 
remaining bareheaded." Great was the surprise of all, 
both friends and foes, when the captain, instead of 
following up his advantage, knelt down before his anta- 
gonist, saying he would rather be his prisoner than any 
other's general. Musidorus was lost in astonishment, 
until his vanquisher exclaimed, " What ! hath Palladius 
forgotten the voice of Daiphantus '? " 

These, it will be remembered, were the assumed names 
of Musidorus and Pyrocles. The state of affairs was 
compHcated, but not too much so for the romancer to 
unravel. Pyrocles explained the course of adventures 
by which he had become the unwilling leader of the 
Helots : and now after bringing them back to peace with 
the Spartans, he released Clitophon and repaired to the 
house of Kalander. Between him and Musidorus there 



330 A MEMOIR OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. [Caxp. xi. 

was much loving converse with interchange of their 
several histories. Among the rest, Musidorus told a 
strange story which he had heard from Kalander, 
concerning Basilius, the Prince of Arcadia, and his 
family. 

Basilius, though not a very wise, courageous, or mag- 
nificent man, was, in most particulars, meek, courteous, 
and merciful. His wife, Gynecia, was a woman of great 
Avit and beauty, and displayed more princely temper 
than her husband. But the grace was with their 
daughters, Pamela and Philoclea. "When I marked 
them both methought there w-as (if, at least, such per- 
fections may receive the word of more) more sweetness 
in Philoclea, but more majesty in Pamela : methought 
love played in Philoclea's eyes, and threatened in 
Pamela's : methought Philoclea's beauty only persuaded, 
but so persuaded as all hearts must yield ; Pamela's 
beauty used violence, and such violence as no heart 
could resist. And it seems that such proportion is 
between their minds. Philoclea, so bashful as though 
her excellences had stolen into her before she w^as 
aware ; so humble that she will put all pride out of coun- 
tenance ; in sum, such proceeding as will stir hope, but 
teach hope good manners : Pamela, of high thoughts, 
who avoids not pride by not knowing her excellences, but 
by making it one of her excellences to be void of pride." 
It was in a wild fit of jealous care for these daughters 
that Basilius had broken up his Court and retired into a 
forest hard by, and had there built two lodges. In one he 
now dwelt, with his wife and Philoclea ; in the other he 
placed the elder sister, under the keeping of one 



Mf25-27.] PAMELA AND PHILOCLEA. 331 

Dametas, an arrant doltish clown, his ugly spouse Miso, 
and their horrid daughter Mopsa, inheritor of both 
parents' defects. To this miserable family the whole 
management of the maidens was assigned, the Prince 
maintaining his authority on one point only, that so long- 
as he lived they should find no husbands. With that 
purpose he shut out all men, except a priest and some 
shepherds skilled in the music which he loved. 

To this story Pyrocles listened with eager and reten- 
tive ears. Becoming moody and silent, he wandered 
often in the woods ; and thereat Musidorus, though he 
saw not its secret, was much displeased. He urged that 
they should leave Arcadia, and return to the busier life 
of Thessalia. Pyrocles, however, would not hear of it, 
and spoke in eloquent tones of the sweets of a pastoral 
life. " I think you will make me see," said Musidorus, 
scoffingly, " that the vigour of your wit can show itself 
in any subject ; or else you feed sometimes your soH- 
tariness with the conceits of the poets when they put 
such words in the mouths of one of these fantastical, 
mind-infected people, that children and musicians call 
lovers ! " " And what, dear cousin," answered Pyrocles, 
" if I be not so much the poet, the freedom of whose pen 
can exercise itself in anything, as even that miserable 
subject of his cunning whereof you speak 1" "Now, 
the eternal gods forbid," shouted Musidorus, "that 
ever my ears should be poisoned with so evil news of 
you!" 

Yet it was true ; and true, also, that Musidorus, like 
every other rash talker who runs tilt with Cupid, had 
very soon to make confession that he also was a willing 



332 A MEMOIR OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. [Chap. Xl. 

slave to love. But this was after Pyrocles, alarmed 
by his harsh words, had fled from him ; and after both, 
wandering apart, had met with many adventures which 
cannot here be recounted. It is enough to say that 
the friends, in the end, met and renewed their vows of 
friendship on the outskirts of the territory from which 
the Prince of Arcadia had banned all intruders. Pyro- 
cles, however, calling himself Zelmane, was now dressed 
Hke a beautiful Amazon, and as such he was regarded by 
all save Musidorus. And Musidorus hid his real cha- 
racter from every eye and ear but those of Pyrocles, 
under the name of Dorus, and the garb of a shepherd. 
With the help of these disguises they were quickly able 
to gain entrance into the forbidden region ; and their 
worth, being such as could nowhere and nohow be 
long concealed, soon became apparent, and won for them 
the favour of the whole company. 

But their new positions were not easy ones to occupy. 
The perplexities of the lovers, and the perils through 
which they had to pass in working onward to their end, 
form the main subject of Sidney's romance. 

Musidorus loved Pamela, but he dared not tell her so ; 
and, that he might gain approach to her, he was forced to 
profess affection for her ugly keeper, Mopsa. Rightly 
trusting to his graceful bearing and courteous speech, 
however, he in time bred in Pamela such tenderness 
towards him, that " she could no longer keep love from 
looking out through her eyes or going forth in her 
words." He was quick in discerning this, yet it gave 
him little comfort. Pamela, thinking that he loved 
Mopsa, and blaming herself for the feelings which she 



Mf 25^2?:] love's entanglements. 333 

could not overcome, would never listen to his suit, or 
allow him opportunity for telling what were his real 
thoughts, and what was his real station. 

Of that sort were the storms of love that beat on 
Musidorus. With Pyrocles, for long, things fared still 
worse. Loving Philoclea, he was taken by her for the 
warhke lady whose garb he affected, and therefore she 
had for him only a sisterly affection ; whereas, Basi- 
lius, being deceived about his sex, regarded him with a 
far stronger liking. Nor was this complication enough. 
Gynecia, also, her practised eye seeing through his 
Amazonian dress, cared for him more than sorted with 
her wifely duty.- Rarely could he seek the society of 
Philoclea without being held back either by the ardent 
passion of the father, who courted him as a maiden, or 
by the watchful jealousy of the mother, who would win 
him as a man. It was hard for him to gain access to 
the daughter's society, even in the presence of her 
attendants. Yet he wooed her cunningl}^ After 
telling, as though they were another's, of the great 
things which he himself had done, he contrived to 
quicken in Philoclea a hearty admiration for the 
unknown knight ; and at last, when once, after long 
waiting, he found himself alone with her, he ventured 
to tell her that he was not a woman, but that same 
knight disguised through love of her. Philoclea hs- 
tened with surprise, but not with anger, and presently 
the surprise issued in happiness. 

In Sidney's romance, the unravelling of those entan- 
glements occupies very many pages ; and some exciting 
interludes, adding further to the complication of the 



334 A MEMOIR OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. [Chap. xi. 

story, are inserted. At one time, the wicked lady 
Cecropia succeeded in a plot by which she captured 
Zelraane. — whose real name, it will be remembered, was 
Pyrocles, — Philoclea, and Pamela, and lodged them in 
her own castle ; thinking thereby to further her ambi- 
tious schemes against Basilius, and so gratify her 
hatred for Gynecia. Her husband, when living, had 
been brother to the Prince of Arcadia, whom now she 
sought to depose, with the view of setting up her son 
Amphialus as Prince, herself being real governor. 
Amphialus, better than his mother, knew nothing of the 
capture, or of the wicked thoughts which prompted it, 
until it had been effected. He had long loved Philoclea, 
and for this the Amazonian Zelmane, in unwomanly 
jealousy, had lately wounded him. Now, however, though 
Philoclea's presence added fuel to his passions, he was not 
base enough to woo with violence. Cecropia, despising 
love and scorning chastity, condemned him for such 
weakness ; but, rather than see him afflicted, she volun- 
teered to urge his suit. "Therefore she went softly 
to Philoclea's chamber, and peeping through the side 
of the door, then being a little open, she saw Philoclea 
sitting low upon a cushion, in such a given-over 
manner, that one would have thought silence, solita- 
riness, and melancholy were come there, under the 
ensign of mishap, to conquer dehght, and drive him 
from his natural seat of beauty. Her tears came 
dropping down like rain in sunshine, and she, not 
taking heed to wipe the tears, they hung upon her 
cheeks and lips, as upon cherries which the dropping 
tree bedeweth. In the dressing of her hair and 



mlII-It^ the strongholds of YIETUE. 335 

apparel she might see neither a careful art nor an 
art of carefulness, but even left to a neglected 
chance, which yet could no more unperfect her 
perfections, than a die, any way cast, could lose his 
squareness." 

Let those descriptive sentences serve for specimens 
of Sidney's style at its worst; but no fault can be 
found with the exquisite picture of pure, noble-minded 
womanhness, as shown in Philoclea's resistance of all 
the insidious attacks, the cunning persuasions, the hard 
threatenings, which were directed against her. Cecropia 
was altogether baffled ; she would willingly have 
revenged herself, but that she saw how, by hurting 
Philoclea, she would be only bringing trouble to her son. 
She thought, however, that one maiden would do as 
well as another for Amphialus, and that he would be 
well pleased if she could win for him some yielding- 
mistress, instead of this disdaining beauty. Therefore, 
fortified with stronger arguments than ever, she betook 
herself to Pamela's chamber, but waited at the door, as 
she had done when visiting Philoclea, to see if some 
circumstance would arise favourable to her intended dis- 
course. Watching thus, she saw Pamela, walking up and 
down like one moved by deep, though patient thoughts. 
" For her look and countenance was settled, her pace 
soft and almost still, of one measure, without any 
passionate gesture or violent motion, till at length, as it 
were awakening and strengthening herself, * Well,' she 
said, ' yet this is the best ; and of this I am sure, that, 
however they wrong me, they cannot overmaster God. 
No darkness blinds His eyes : no gaol bars Him out : 



836 A MEMOIR OF SIR PPIILIP SIDNEY. [CiiAr. XI. 

to whom else should I fly but to Him for succour 1 ' And 
therefore, kneeling down, even where she stood, she 
thus said, ' All-seeing Light and Eternal Life of all 
things, to Whom nothing is either so great that it may 
resist, or so small that it is contemned ; look upon my 
misery with Thine eye of mercy, and let Thine infinite 
power vouchsafe to limit out some proportion of de- 
liverance unto me, as to Thee shall be most convenient. 
Let not injury, Lord, triumph over me, and let my 
faults by Thy hand be corrected, and make not mine 
unjust enemy the minister of Thy justice. But yet, my 
God, if, in Thy wisdom, this be the aptest chastisement 
for my unexcusable folly, if this low bondage be fitted 
for my over high desires, if the pride of my not enough 
humble heart be thus to be broken, Lord, I yield 
unto Thy will, and joyfully embrace what sorrow Thou 
wilt have me suffer. Only thus much let me crave of 
Thee : let my craving, Lord, be accepted of Thee, since 
even that proceed-s from Thee ; let me crave, even by 
the noblest title which in my greatest afliiction I may 
give myself, that I am Thy creature, and by Thy good- 
ness, which is Thyself, that Thou will suffer some beam 
of Thy majesty so to shine into my mind that it may 
still depend constantly upon Thee. Let calamity be 
the exercise, but not the overthrow of my virtue ; let 
their power prevail, but prevail not to destruction. Let 
my greatness be their prey ; let my pain be the sweet- 
ness of their revenge ; let them, if so it seem good unto 
Thee, vex me with more and more punishment ; but, 
Lord, let never their wickedness have such a hand 
but that I may carry a pure mind in a pure body.' 



^ifc°25-27:] WEAPONS SPIRITUAL AND PHYSICAL. 337 

And pausing awhile, ' And most gracious Lord/ said 
she, ' whatever becomes of me, preserve the virtuous 
Musidorus/ '"' 

Such a prayer as this of Pamela's could be powerless 
upon none. "Even the hard-hearted wickedness of 
Cecropia, if it found not a love of that goodness, yet it 
felt an abasement at that goodness ; and if she had 
not a kindly remorse, yet had she an irksome accusation 
of her own naughtiness, so that she was put from the 
bias of her fore-intended lesson." Something she did 
say at this time, and much on other days ; but of course 
she received no answer save scornful reproof 

Virtue was a sure defence to the oppressed maidens, 
a truer helper than the Arcadian army, which often 
fought bravely for their rescue, but as often failed. Of 
the warfare there is lengthy description : a part of 
■which may serve as illustration of much else of Sidney's 
writing, pleasant notwithstanding its extravagance of 
word and thought. " After the terrible sahitation of 
warlike noise, the shaking of hands was with sharp 
weapons. Some lances, according to the metal they 
met and skill of the guider, did stain themselves in 
blood ; some flew up in pieces, as if they would threaten 
heaven because they failed on earth. But their office 
was quickly inherited, either by the prince of weapons 
the sword, or by some heavy mace or biting axe, which, 
hunting still the weakest chase, sought ever to light 
there where smallest resistance might worse prevent 
mischief. The clashing of armour, and crushing of 

* This is the prayer which the author of the IJ:on Easilike put 

into the n:ciith of King Charles the First. 

z 



338 A MEMOIR OP SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. [Ckap.XI. 

staves, the jostling of bodies, the resounding of blows, 
was the first part of that ill-agreeing music which was 
beautified with the grisliness of wounds, the rising of 
dust, the hideous falls, and the groans of the dying. 
The very horses, angry in their masters' anger, with 
love and obedience brought forth the effects of hate and 
resistance, and, with minds of servitude, did as if they 
afiected glory. Some lay dead under their dead masters, 
whom unknightly wounds had unjustly punished for a 
faithful duty. Some lay upon their lords by like acci- 
dents, and in death had the honour to be borne by 
them whom in life they had borne. Some, having lost 
their commanding burthens, ran scattered about the 
field, abashed with the madness of mankind. The earth 
itself, wont to be a burial of men, was now, as it were, 
buried with men : so was the face thereof hidden with 
dead bodies, to whom death had come marked in divers 
manners. In one place lay disinherited heads, dis- 
possessed of their natural seignories ; in another, whole 
bodies to see to, but that their hearts, wont to be bound 
all over so close, were now with deadly violence opened ; 
in others, fouler deaths had uglily displayed their trail- 
ing guts. There lay arms, whose fingers yet moved, as 
if they would feel for him that made them feel ; and 
legs which, contrary to common reason, by being dis- 
charged of their burden were grown heavier. But no 
sword paid so large a tribute of souls to the eternal 
kingdom as that of Amphialus, who, like a tiger from 
whom a company of wolves did seek to ravish a new 
gotten prey, so he, remembering they came to take 
away Philoclea, did labour to make valour, strength, 



m?25-27:J THE UGLY WORK OF WAR. 339 

choler, and hatred, to answer the proportion of his love, 
which was infinite.'^ 

Very skilful is the rehearsal of the contest on a later 
day, in which Amphialus slew the famous Argalus, fair 
Parthenia, best and truest of wives, tending her 
husband in his death ; of the still later contest which 
the same Amphialus had wdth one who came as a 
stranger knight to revenge the fate of Argalus, and 
who, when the death-wound had been given, proved to 
be none other than Parthenia ; and of the deep, stern 
lesson which thus he learnt of the mischief that must 
ever come from warring in an unholy warfare. Never, 
he thought, would it have fallen to him bhndly to have 
stricken down so excellent a lady, had he not been 
battling for a wrongful cause and in pursuance of an 
impure love. 

But Cecropia's heart was not moved. Her son's 
suffering only heightened her cruelty, and added to the 
wickedness of the treatment she gave to her three cap- 
tives, Philoclea, Pamela, anc' Zelmane. The story of it 
all is wearisome. 

Sidney himself seems to have grown weary of his 
work. At this point there is an entire break in the 
narrative, and the remaining quarter of the book exists 
to us in a much less finished state than the three 
quarters from which I have drawn the preceding 
extracts. Indeed, we are told that the remainder was 
never so much as seen by its author, after he sent away 
the loose sheets to his sister. " Yet for that it was 
his," we learn, " howsoever deprived of the just grace 
it should have had, it w^as held too good to be lost, and 

z2 



.040 A MEMOIR OF SIR TIIlLir SIDNEY. [ChapXI. 

llierefore witli much labour were tlic best coherences that 
could be gathered out of those scattered papers made 
only by her noble care to whose dear hand they were 
first committed, and for whose delight and entertain- 
ment only they were undertaken." 

At the resuming of the story we find peace in Arcadia 
— Zelmane, Philoclea, and Pamela, being restored to 
Basilius. Yet matters were not altogether as they 
ought to have been. Musidorus was still suffering 
indignity in his disguise as a shepherd, and Pyrocles 
unwillingly continued to be loved, in his Amazonian 
dress, by the King, and, in his discovered manhood, by 
the Queen. Each youth had won the pure liking of 
the maiden whom he purely loved ; but how further 
were they to proceed '? The elder of the two solved 
the difficulty by persuading Pamela to flee with him to 
his home, and to become Duchess of Thessalia. But 
PjTOcles remained, " loathsomely loved and dangerously 
loving." He, however, found bold means for ending his 
perplexity. Promising gratification of their unchaste 
desires to both Basilius and Gynecia, he contrived law- 
fully to deceive them both, and to bring them to the 
unwitting enjoyment of each other's society; and thus 
lie was left alone to the possession of Philoclea's love. 
Many perils attended the working out and the issue of 
this device, and they are lengthily recounted in the 
romance ; but containing less that is either interesting 
or wholesome than any other part of The Arcadia, they 
need not be here repeated. 
«^Sidney never properly completed the romance. On the 



^^25-2?:] THE END OF THE ARCADIA. 341 

last page he hastily wound up his complicated iiarratiye. 
Basilius was brought back to his right mind, in respect 
both of his kingly office and of his domestic duty. 
Abandoning his unmanly seclusion, he exercised a ^Yise 
rule over Arcadia, and returned to his former pure 
affection for his wife. G3"necia also, surrendering her 
evil thoughts, received and partly deserved most 
honourable fame throughout the world ; all, save 
Pyrocles and Philoclea, who never betrayed her, 
thinking that she was the perfect mirror of wifeiy 
love, " which, though in that point undeserved, she did, 
in the remnant of her life, duly purchase with observing 
all duty and faith, to the example and glory of Greece ; 
so uncertain are mortal judgments, the same person 
most infamous and most famous, and neither justly."' 
Sidney's closing sentence indicates the matters whicli 
he doubtless originally intended to have presented wiiii 
great fulness. Concerning Musidorus and Pyrocles, Jio 
said : " The solemnities of their marriao-es with tlie 
Arcadian pastorals, full of many comical adventures 
happening to those rural lovers, the strange stories of 
Artaxia and Plexirtus, Erona and Plangus, Hellen and 
Amphialus, with the wonderful chances that befel them ; 
the shepherdish loves of Menalcas with Kalodulus's 
daughter ; the poor hopes uf the poor Philisides^' — that 
being the name by which Sidney referred to himself — 
" in the pursuit of his affections ; the strange continuance 
of Claius and Strephon's desire ; lastly the son of 
Pyrocles, named Pyrophilus, and Melidora, the fair 
daughter of Pamela, by Musidorus, who even at their 
birth entered into admirable fortunes, may awake some 



342 A MEMOIR OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. [Cuap. xi. 

other spirit to exercise his pen in that wherewith mine 
is already dulled." 

xlt is not much to be wondered at that Sidney's 
spirit was dulled. The work was already far too long, 
and in it there were very many faults, by no one else 
so clearly seen and condemned as by the author. He 
thought too poorly of it to suffer it to be printed in his 
lifetime, and on his death-bed he desired that it might 
be burned. That this request was not comphed with 
is ground for very real satisfaction. The good that 
was in The Arcadia greatly overbalanced the bad. It 
had some memorable lessons to teach to the world, and 
it taught them very effectually. But, in praising it, we 
must never forget that Sidney himself, in his matured 
years, saw reason for greatly dispraising it, and that it 
has lived only through the loving zeal of the sister for 
whom it was so lovingly prepared. Indeed we cannot 
fully judge of the merits of the work as left by its 
author. To fit it for presentment to the world, we are 
told that the Countess of Pembroke did much, and that 
" as often, repairing a ruinous house, the mending of 
some old part occasioneth the making of some new, so 
Iiere her honourable labour began in correcting the 
faults, and ended in supplying the defects."'"'" Many 
faults remain, and it is even possible that some of them 
were the work of the correcting hand. 

One great error of The Arcadia, however, was in its 
original design. The mixing up of classical fable with 
chivalrous romance, and the reflection therein of many 

* The Address to the Reader prefixed to tlie early editions. 



^t25-27.*] SOME FAULTS OF THE ARCADIA. 343 

contemporary incidents, could not but produce serious 
confusion and contradiction. The pastoral and the 
heroic sort ill with one another. For combining them, 
Sidney had the precedent of all the Spanish and Itahan 
romances which helped him in his work, but his own 
good sense and hterary judgment were shown in his 
determination, if life and inclination had remained with 
him, to undo the whole story, and retain only such parts 
of it as would fit into a strictly historical romance with 
King Arthur for its hero. That was a scheme admi- 
rably suited to the full unfolding of his genius, and one 
upon which he could not have failed to write wonder- 
fully well. But that design he was never able to fulfil. 
In the laboured character of its details, and in its 
often extravagant style of thought and phrase, there is, 
also, ground for condemning TJie Arcadia. Overstrain- 
ing, however, was a leading attribute of all studied 
prose writing in Sidney's day, wdth almost the single 
exception of his own Defence of Poesie. It makes 
up nearly all the substance of Lyly's EiipJmes written 
in 1579. In plot, of course, there is hardly room for 
comparison between Sidney's and Lyly's works. While 
The Arcadia was professedly an elaborate fiction, 
Euphues was designed to contain all sorts of prudent 
counsel and sharp satire, shaped as flesh around the 
dry skeleton of a tale. Lyly followed the example 
adopted by many of the scholastic successors of Boethius. 
His work was in a measure well done ; there is always 
much good sense to be found in his quaint, extravagant 
sentences : but undoubtedly Sidney's mode of teaching 
was wiser, and his style of writing purer. Both authors 



34:1 A MEMOIR OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. [Cuap.xi. 

wished to enforce the noblest thoughts that were in 
them. But The Arcadia contains very Httle of direct 
morahzation, and, in the constant flow of description, 
the writer's mind is left to make an undefined yet 
strong impression upon the reader ; whereas the 
thoughts of EupJmes lose all their energy and influence 
in the teacher's persistent effort to present them most 
forcibly and discernibly. Enough has been quoted to 
show Sidney's method. A few sentences, neither better 
nor worse than the rest of the book, will suffice for 
illustration of Lyly's style of teaching. 

'' Let not gentlewomen," he says, " make too mucli of their painted 
sheath, let them not be so curious in their own conceit, or so currish 
to their royal lovers. When the black crow's foot shall appear in their 
eye or the black ox tread on their foot, when their beauty shall be like 
the blasted rose, their wealth wasted, their bodies worn, their faces 
■wrinkled, their fingers crooked, who will like of them in their age who 
loved none in their youth ? If you will be cherished when you be old, 
be courteous while you be young ; if you look for comfort in your 
hoary hairs, be not coy when you have your golden locks ; if you woul I 
be imbraced in the waning of your bravery, be not squeamish in the 
wearing of your beauty : if you desire to be kept like the roses, when 
they have lost their colour, smell sweet as the rose doth in the bud ; 
if you would be tasted for old wine, be in the mouth a pleasant grape ; 
so shall you be cherished for your courtesy, comforted for your 
honesty, embraced for your amity ; so shall you be preserved with 
the sweet rose and drunk with the pleasant wine." * 

In The Arcadia, as in Eiiphies, there was much 
sober teaching by good and bad example, and by im- 
plied satire. The book may possibly have been intended 
to be, as one old critic called it, " a continual grove of 

* Eui->'hues {edi, 1579), fo. 13. 



1580— 15S2 
^t. 25—27 



^;] EUPHUES AND THE AECADIA. 315 



morality, shadowing moral and political results under 
the plain and easy emblems of lovers." ^ But the 
assertion of many others of its admirers, that it con- 
tained a complete allegorical view of the age, is certainly 
erroneous. It is not at all to be believed that Sidney 
meant to vaunt his own merits under the name of 
Pyrocles, or to compliment his friend Fulke Greville by 
presenting him as Musidorus, or to show his sister's 
virtue in the praise of Pamela, or to put false painting 
upon Lady Rich in the portrait of Philoclea, or to typify 
his father in Euarchus, or to defame Queen Mary of 
Scotland in his rehearsal of Cecropia's wickedness. 

Having commenced his romance in the summer of 
1580, I infer that Sidney had written about three- 
quarters of the whole, and all which has come down to 
us in a finished state, by the autumn of 1581. On the 
30th of September in that year Languet died, and hi 
the concluding eclogue of the third book of The Arcadia 
we meet with the affectionate praise of the honest Hugu- 
enot to which reference has been made. It is reasonable to 
suppose that the eulogy was penned soon after the event 
which called it forth. Indeed the entire work, though 
no allegory is to be found in it, gives clear evidence 
of the author's varying mood at the various periods of 
his writing. The earher portions, composed at Wilton 
and in the immediate company of the Countess of Pem- 
broke, have all the graceful flow of fancy, the fulness of 
pastoral imagery, the buoyancy of happy, innocent 
thought, which might be expected to mark the time of 

* The Life and Death of Sir Philip Sidney, 



846 A MEMOIR OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. [CnAP. xi. 

Sidney's retirement from Court and participation in the 
lich joys of true domestic life. The middle part — written, 
as I conclude, after his return to the world of courtly 
gaiety — is equally in harmony with the scenes and cir- 
cumstances of its authorship. In it there is more strength 
of literary power, but the theme is far less inviting. Some 
episodes are of exquisite beaut}^ ; but the substance of 
the tale, including the endless description of Cecropia's 
abode and the things done in it, is dull and tedious. 
There is utterance of dainty conceits like these : — 

" My true love liath my heart, and I have his. 
By just exchange, one for the other given ; 
I hold his dear, and mine he cannot miss ; 
There never was a better bargain driven. 

*' His heart in me keeps me and him in one ; 

My heart in him his thoughts and senses guides. 
He loves my heart, for once it was his own ; 
I cherish his because in me it bides." * 

But there is as true an echo of the writer^s mind, weary 
of the life which he seemed forced to lead, in such mourn- 
ful verse as this upon a lute : — 

" The world doth yield such ill consorted shows. 
With circled course, which no wise stay can try. 

That childish stuff, which knows not friends from foes, 
(Better despised) bewonders gazing eye. 

Thus noble gold down to the bottom goes. 
When worthless cork aloft doth floating lie. 

Thus in thyself least strings are loudest found, 

And lowest stops do yield the highest sound, "f 



^ Arcadia (ed. 1655), pp. 357, 358. 
t Ibid., p. 370. 



iEt?25-27:] MOODS OF AUTHOESHIP. 347 

Or this :— 

" Beauty hatli force to catch tlie human sight : 
Sight doth bewitch the fancy ill awaked ; 
Fancy, we feel, includes all passion's might ; 

Passion, rebell'd, oft reason's strength hath shaked. 

" No wonder then, though sight my sight did taint, 
And though thereby my fancy was infected. 
Though, yoked so, my mind, with sickness faint. 
Had reason's weight for passion's ease rejected. 

" But now the fit is past, and time hath given 
Leisure to weigh what due desert requireth. 

All thoughts so sprung are from their dwelling driven, 
And wisdom to his wonted seat aspireth. 

Crying, in me, * Eye-hopes deceitful prove ; 

Things rightly prized, love is the band of love.' " * 

That cry of Wisdom we know to have been heard 
through many groans of passion in Sidney's own short 
Hfe. In the fourth and fifth books of The Arcadia, brief 
and disjointed as we have them, we have the foretaste of 
many of his thoughts at a later period. His journey to 
Flanders, in the early spring of 1582, must have inter- 
rupted his literary work. After that there was a 
marked change in his temper. Honest purposes were 
rising in him which little accorded with many senti- 
ments in the half-written romance. Hastily, and with 
not much satisfaction to himself, he finished it as briefly 
as he could ; spoiling the perfection of the story, but 
very beautifully showing how his own nature was being 
perfected. Thus solemnly and grandly, when his tale 
was almost ended, did he sum up and enforce some 

* Arcadia, p. 375. 



318 A MEMOIR OP Slil PHILIP SIDNEY. [Chap. XI. 

teaching of the wisdom now fully his own, upon the 
deepest of all earthly mysteries : — 

*' Since nature's works be good, and death dotli serve 
As nature's work, why should we fear to die ? 
Since fear is vain but when it may preserve, 
Why should we fear that which we cannot fly ? 
" Fear is more pain than is the pain it fears, 
Disarming human minds of native might ; 
While each conceit an ugly figure bears 
Which were not ill, well viewed in reason's light. 
" Our owly eyes, which dimmed with passions be. 
And scarce discern the dawn of coming day. 
Let theiri be cleared, and now begin to see 

Our life is but a step in dusty way. 
Then let us hold the bliss of peaceful mind : 
Since, feeling this, great loss we cannot find." * 

Of sonnets, besides those scattered through The Ar- 
cadia^ Sidney wrote a hundred and twenty-five, if not 
more. A hundred and eight are included in his Astro- 
phel and Stella, a collection of poems, half true and half 
fictitious, composed during about the same period as 
that covered by the prose romance. From it I have 
already quoted many passages, in indication of the state 
of Sidney's mind and heart. 

He followed too much the example of his immediate 
predecessors, the chief of them being Wyatt and Surrey. 
Sir Thomas Wj^att, the elder, who died in 1540, had 
helped to set the fashion of travelling in Italy, and of 
coming back to imitate the strains of Petrarch and 
Ariosto. Both fashions were further enforced by the 
more splendid manners and the finer genius of Henry 

* Arcadia, p. 457. 



Mf-~^-27.] SONNET-WEITIXG. 349 

Howard, Earl of Surrey. Surrey, distantly connected 
by famil}^ with Sidne}^ showed some chance Hkeness to 
him in the briUiancy of his hfe and the prematureness 
of his death. In January, 1547, before he had ended 
his thirtieth year, he was executed on the foohsh charge 
of having assumed the arms of Edward the Confessor, 
and thereby laid claim to royalty. Yet he lived long 
enough to plant firmly in England the Italian sonnet, 
and the still more recently invented blank verse of Italy. 
The Italian influence was not here first exerted upon 
our literature. Long before, Chaucer had borrowed 
much and wisely from Boccaccio, Petrarch, and Dante, 
and Lidgate and his companions had willingly enslaved 
themselves to the example of the southern poets. But 
this early imitation showed itself chiefly in the produc- 
tion of long prosaic epics, and in the repetition of short 
and often immoral fables ; and before the dawning of the 
sixteenth century the epics, if not the fables, hadl)ecome 
wearisome to English readers. There was a charm of 
novelty in the sonnets of Wyatt and Surrey, some of them 
translated, the rest closely imitated, from Petrarch and 
Petrarch's extravagant copyists. The great Italian had 
sung sweetly to his Laura ; and there were numbers, 
both in and out of Italy, eager to outvie him in his vows 
and protestations. Whoever the fair Geraldine may 
have been, and whatever sway she may have had over 
Surrey, his love-poems were of the sort to take strong 
hold of every courtly mind. In Sidney's youth, numbers 
were multiplying fantastic and delicate conceits, and the 
fashion prevailed after he was dead. Perhaps no one 
so fairly illustrates it as Henry Constable, a year or 



350 A MEMOIR OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. [Chak XI 

two his junior. Rich in true poetry, Constable's verse 
abounds in evidence of the absurd style of the day. 
Within the limits of a single sonnet, his lady's eye is at 
once a glass where he beholds his heart, the keen point 
of a murdering dart with which she " always hits his 
heart, and never shoots awry," and a fire which would 
burn him up, were not his eye a river to prevent 
absolute annihilation, and to keep him in a state of 
boiling misery. In another, her glove gives occasion 
for this apostrophe : — 

" Sweet hand ! the sweet yet cruel bow thou art, 
From whence at me five ivory arrows fly ; 
So with five wounds at once I wounded lie. 
Bearing in breast the print of every dart." 

In that school Sidney learnt to write sonnets. Often 
he gave full proof of having caught the infection of the 
time ; often he wrote in far healthier way than any 
around him, save just one or two, could equal. To the 
English sonnet he imparted an energy and moral pur- 
pose never before shown, but rarely did he write with 
the perfect freedom of a true master of poesy. 

From Astropliel and Stella I have already quoted 
enough in illustration of Sidney's wooing of Lady Rich, 
and of his place at Court. Let this sonnet, however, 
be read, as containing, perhaps more than any other of 
his composing, trace of the vicious style of his time : — 

" Queen Virtue's Court, which some call Stella's face, 
Prepared by nature's choicest furniture, 
Hath his front built of alabaster pure ; 
Gold is the covering of that stately place ; 



m 25-27.] ASTROPHEL AND STELLA. 351 

" The door by -whicli, sometimes, comes forth her grace, 
Red porphyr is, which lock of pearl makes sure, 
Whose porches rich, which name of cheeks endure, 

Marble, mixed red and white, do interlace ; 
*' The windows now, through which this heavenly guest 
Looks o'er the world and can find nothing such 

Which dare claim from those lights the name of best, 
Of touch they are that, without touch, doth touch, 

Which Cupid's self, from Beauty's mind did draw ; 

Of touch they are — and poor I am their straw ! " * 

And, on the other hand, let this be taken as one of the 
most poetical of Sidney's sonnets. 

" Come Sleep, O Sleep ! the certain knot of peace. 

The baiting place of wit, the balm of woe. 
The poor man's wealth, the prisonei-'s release. 

The indifferent judge between the liigh and low ; 
With shield of proof shield me from out the press 

Of those fierce darts Despair at me doth throw ; 
O make in me those civil wars to cease ; 

I will good tribute pay if thou do so. 

" Take thou of me smooth pillows, sweetest bed, 
A chamber deaf to noise and blind to light, 
A rosy garland and a weary head ; 

And if these things, as being thine by right, 
Move not thy heavy grace, thou shalt in me. 
Livelier than elsewhere, Stella's image see." f 

Sidney was a better poet after the last sonnet in 
Astrophel and Stella had been penned. Pervading the 
work is an unhealthy tone, lessening the pleasure with 
which we regard even those passages that are really 
beautiful. If in reading The Arcadia we are sometimes 

* Astrophel and Stella, sonnet ix. 
t Ibid, sonnet xxxix. 



352 A MEMOIR OF SIR rillLIP SIDNEY. [Ciur. XI. 

reminded of the Liiidrancc offered to Sidney's higher 
nature by the fascinations of Court-life, we see much 
more to lament in the misguided thoughts and per- 
verted purposes of which tliere is evidence in his son- 
nets about Lady Rich. They are no whit more poetical 
because they tell us of a heart perplexed and tortured — 
because the strains with gayest sound have no echo 
of real happiness — because those in which he acknow- 
ledges his misery are so very full of wretchedness. 
Strength and honour came when that cry of wisdom, of 
which he sang so worthily in The Arcadia, was bravely 
listened to and obeyed ; but, before reason had 
vanquished folly, and virtue had stifled passion, what 
a bitterness of grief oppressed him ! 

" Oft have I mused, but now at lengtli I find. 

Why those that die, men say * they do depart. ' 
Depart ! a word so gentle to my mind. 

Weakly did seem to paint Death's ugly dart. 
But, now the stars, with their strange course, do bind 

Me one to leave with whom I leave my heart, 
I hear a cry of spirits, faint and blind. 

That, parting thus, my chiefest part I part. 

" Part of my life, the loathed part to me. 

Lives to impart my weary clay some breath ; 

But that good part, wherein all comforts be, 
Now dead, doth show departure is a death ; 

Yea, worse than death : death parts both woe and joy ; 

From joy I part, still living in annoy." ^ 



* Miscellaneoiis V/orl^Sj p. 340. 



CHAPTER XII. 



KEW PROJECTS AjSTD NEW DUTIES. 

1582—1584. 



DuEma the two years subsequent to Philip Sidney's 
return from attendance upon the Duke of Anjou in 
Flanders, many matters of interest arose to occupy his 
thoughts and prevent him from being engrossed in the 
idle gaieties of the Elizabethan Court. With some 
features in the Queen s character, while he grew in re- 
spect for all that was really great in her, he was ever 
seeing fresh reason for being dissatisfied. All the cir- 
cumstances connected with the Duke's courtship joined 
to teach him some memorable lessons. But the truth 
was yet more clearly reflected in the treatment accorded 
to his own father : and to his father's concerns Philip 
was now giving especial heed. 

Towards the end of April, Edmund Molineux came to 
him at Court, with a strange proposal from Sir Henry 
Sidney. At this time there was great talk about the 
appointment of Sir Henry for the fourth time to the 
Lord Deputyship of Ireland, in the place of Lord Grey 
of Wilton, presently to be recalled. Sir Henry sent to 
say that he was wiUing to go, if Philip would consent 
to go with him as his agent, and, when he returned, to 
stay in Ireland, with her Majesty's permission, as his 



A A 



354 A MEMOIR OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. [Chap. XII. 

successor. Should Philip consent to this, his father 
enumerated three other conditions which he wished him 
to set before both Queen and Council. In the first 
place, the Lord President claimed from her Majesty a 
public acknowledgment that he had done as good 
service for Ireland as any other rulers before or since ; 
in other words, he required of her an apology for her 
unreasonable misconstruing of his motives, and dis- 
paragement of his abilities. As a second point, he 
urged that he ought to have a title of nobility, with an 
adequate grant of landed property ; so that all might 
know he was well thought of at Court, and might 
accordingly be induced to yield to his authority. Sir 
Henry's last request was that, if again sent to Ireland, 
he might go rather as Lord Lieutenant than as Lord 
Deputy. ■^'' 

It would not at all have sorted with Philip's tempe- 
rament for him to go as under-governor to Ireland. I 
imagine that he at once showed to his father's agent 
the inexpedience of the proposal, as well as the impos- 
sibility of persuading the Queen to bestow on Sir Henry 
such large gifts and such arbitrary powers. The project, 
of which we hear no more, seems to have been at once 
abandoned. The father and son, however, were much 
together during these summer months. Both were 
labouring diligently to obtain from the Queen some 
part of the recompence which was due. 

Sir Henry Sidney's was one of those quiet, unboastful 



* state Paper OfBce, MSS., Irish Correspondence, Elizaheth, vol. 
xcii. N"o. 36. Sidney Papers, vol. i., pp. 295, 296. 



1582. 
Mt. 27. 



] SIR HENRY Sidney's seryices. 355 



lives which are apt to be slighted in their own time, and 
by later generations to be quite forgotten. Yet Queen 
Elizabeth had few better servants than he, and he had 
fairly earned far more reward than he claimed. 

During a period of twelve years his chief employment 
had been in Ireland. There, by his hard and pain- 
ful work, he had contracted the malady which en- 
feebled him, and made him prematurely old. Of 
Ireland he had been four times Lord Justice. Thrice he 
had been Lord Deputy : " and in every of the three 
times,^' he said, "I sustained a great and a violent 
rebelHon, every one of which I subdued, and with 
honourable peace left the country in quiet." In the 
first instance he dispersed the forces of Shane O'Neil, 
and fixed the rebel's head on the top of Dublin Castle. 
In the second he guided the English cause triumphantly 
through the dangers of the Butlers' war. In the third 
he did all in his power towards removing the commo- 
tions caused by the Earl of Clanricarde. Bravely using 
the sword when needful, he had, however, sought 
rather to conquer the wild natives in peaceful ways. 
He was wont, as often as he could, to invite their 
leading men to visit him, in order that he might win 
their personal esteem, and might set them a good 
example, we are told, of civility, of comeliness in habit, 
and of cleanliness in person. From his first arrival he 
began to give offence to many of the nobihty, and to 
Queen Elizabeth, who sided with them, by causing the 
old statute of Coyne and Livery to be revived and duly 
executed ; but the common people blessed him for it, 
for thereby fair measure of taxation was set upon aU 



A A 2 



350 A MEMOIR OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. [Chap xii. 

alike, and prompt relief afforded to thousands who had 
till now been grievously oppressed and often im- 
poverished to starvation. That justice might more 
readily be done to the whole nation, he caused presi- 
dents and judges to be appointed for the distant parts, 
just as had long been the case in Wales, and he was 
very careful to see that all causes were tried with the 
very least delay. He procured the appointment of the 
offices of Attorney-General and Solicitor-General in 
Ireland. 

For the furtherance of justice, again, he spht up the 
country into shires, in place of the old division into 
provinces, and took care that fit sherifi*s were appointed. 
For the first time in the annals of the country he drew 
up a proper schedule of imposts upon wines and other 
articles of trade. That the government might in all 
ways have due respect, he rebuilt Dublin Castle, then 
in ruins, and drove out from it the vile persons who 
hitherto had made it their especial haunt. He restored 
the ruined town of Athenry. By constructing the bridge 
of Athlone over the Shannon he brought Connaught a 
great deal nearer than it had ever been before. He 
helped to frighten rebelHon out of Ulster by strongly 
fortifying Carrickfergus, and he set up a warning for 
all Ireland in the stout prison of MuUingar. We are 
also told of many other great works which he efiected, 
and of many more to which he gave beginning. 

In other matters he was not less carefiil. Finding the 
records of the kingdom exposed to wind and rain and 
damp, so utterly neglected even that they were used 
for waste paper, he lost no time in appointing suitable 



^^27.] THE LOKD DEPUTY OF lEELAND. 357 

persons to read them all through with care ; and then, 
selecting one of the driest and cleanest rooms in the 
whole castle, he caused them to be sorted according to 
their subjects, and looked after by a librarian of known 
skill and discretion. In the same way he saw that the 
statutes and ordinances of the country, till now never 
studied or followed, though kept in safety, were properly 
brought to light. He nominated the ablest and most 
learned men whom he could find to search them, classify 
them, and provide suitable indices to such as did not 
seem important enough to be printed in full. He made 
it his business always to seek out the fittest men for 
the public service, training three such secretaries as 
Edward -Waterhouse, Edward Tremaine, and Edmund 
Mohneux. Nor did he give heed only to politics. He 
favoured all who did, or promised to do, any service to 
literature or science, it being a common remark of his 
that knowledge was to be honoured wherever it was 
found. He used large sums out of his scanty income 
to estabhsh schools "for reforming the savageness of 
the people," and it was his darling project to found an 
Irish university which should be the rival of Oxford 
and Cambridge. 

Besides his long employment in Ireland, he had often 
been occupied on other errands of State. Twice he had 
been sent into France, once into Spain, and once into 
Scotland. On two occasions he had gone into Kent, at 
one time to receive Duke Adolphus of Saxony, and at 
another to do honour to Prince Casimir. He had remained 
some time at Portsmouth, and had superintended the 
victualling of Newhaven. 



•358 A MEMOIR OP SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. [Chap.xii. 

Of Wales he had been Lord President for now three- 
and-twenty years ; and he acknowledged the happy 
times he had spent there in the interval of other work. 
" Great it is,'' he said, " that, in some sort, I govern the 
third part of this realm under her most excellent 
Majesty ; high it is, for by that I have precedence of 
great personages and far my betters ; happy it is, for 
the goodness of the people whom I govern ; and most 
happy it is, for the commodity that I have by the 
authority of that place to do good every day, if I have 
grace to one or other. There I confess I. feel no small 
felicity ; but, for any profit I gather by it, God and the 
people, seeing my manner of life, know it is not pos- 
sible how I should gather any. For, alas, how can I, 
not having one groat of pension belonging to the office 1 
I have not so much ground as will feed a mutton. I 
sell no justice ; and if my mind were so base and 
corruptible as I would take money of the people I 
command, for my labour commanded by the queen and 
taken amongst them, yet could they give me none or 
very little, for the causes that come before me are 
causes of people mean, base, and many of them very 
beggars/' " I confess," he said elsewhere, " I am the 
meanest and poorest man that ever occupied this place ; 
yet I will and may compare. I have continued in better 
and longer housekeeping than any of my predecessors. 
I have builded more and repaired more of her Majesty's 
castles and houses, without issuing of money out of her 
Highness's coffers, than all the Presidents that have 
been this hundred years ; and this will the Castle of 
Ludlow, the castles of Wigmore and of Montgomery 



1 



J 



1582 



,^27.] THE LORD PRESIDENT OP WALES. 359 

show/' Twenty pounds a week was the allowance 
which he had for maintaining the dignity of his office, 
and it cost him fully thirty pounds. " Here some may 
object that upon the same I keep my wife and her 
followers. True it is she is now with me ; and if both 
she and I had our food and house-room free — as we 
have not — in conscience we have deserved it. For my 
part, I am not idle, but every day I work in my function. 
And she, for her old service and the marks taken in 
the same, and yet remaining in her face, meriteth her 
meat." Lady Sidney's service, it will be remembered, 
was the nursing of Queen Elizabeth when her Majesty 
lay desperately ill with the smallpox ; and the marks, 
now more than twenty years old, were the relics of the 
disease which she had caught in consequence of her 
unselfish conduct. Certainly she did merit her meat."^'' 
" I have three sons,'' said Sir Henry Sidney in the 
letter, written to Sir Francis Walsingham, from which I 
have been quoting, " one of excellent good proof, the 
second of real good hope, and the third not to be despised 
of." Yet he would have to leave them, all three together, 
70,000/. poorer than he, an only son, had been left by 
his father. " I am now fifty-four years of age, toothless 
and trembling, being 5000/. in debt, yea, and 30,000/. 
w^orse than I was at the death of my most dear king and 
master. King Edward YI. I have not from the Crown 
of England, of my own getting, so much ground as I 
can cover with my foot. All my fees amount not to 
one hundred marks a year. I never had, since the 

* state Paper Office, MSS., Domestic Correspondence^ Elizohetli, 
vol. clix. No. 1. HoUinshed, vol. iii. pp. 1548 — 1552. 



360 A MEMOIR OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. [Ciiap. xii. 

Queen's reign, any extraordinary forfeit, or otherwise, 
and yet, for all that was done and somewhat more 
than here is written, I cannot claim to have in fee-farm 
one hundred jDounds a-year in my own possession. 
Dura est conditio servorum !" 

Things being in this state, it is not strange that Sir 
Henry Sidney, when his proposed mission to Ireland 
was being talked about, should have insisted that, if 
sent at all, he must be sent with the highest pos- 
sible credentials, or that, when that project, with its 
opportunity of new wealth and influence, had failed, 
he should have used all the honest and honourable 
influence within reach, for gaining something of the 
position in the world to which he felt himself justly 
entitled. To his elder son, the son " of excellent good 
proof," he naturally turned for assistance, and Philip, 
led not only by filial love, but also by personal interest, 
gladly did his best. In Wales and its outskirts he 
seems to have spent much time during the year 1582. 
In July he was at Hereford, in conference with Sir 
Henry. * Then, or a little later, they were preparing a 
fiill statement of the family difficulties, and seeing what 
was best to be done. The business was completed by 
November, when Philip returned to Court, as appears 
by a letter written by him to Lord Burgbley on the 
14th of the month. The dear friend and companion to 
whose recent death reference is made was William, the 
excellent son of Lord Wentworth, and married a year 
ago to Lord Burghley's youngest daughter, Ehzabeth. 

* Sidney Pajyers, vol. i. p. 296. 



1583. 1 T1TTTT T-n' 

Mt. 



Is] PHILIPS AVOPvK FOR HIS FATHER. 361 



" I came up hoping to have been myself a deliverer of the 
enclosed letters, and so to have laid my father's mind and matters in 
your Lordship's hands, as one on whose advice and direction he 
dependeth. But finding here the loss your Lordship hath of late had, 
it made me both at first delay the sending and now the bringing, lest, 
because we were friends and dear companions together, my sight 
might stir some grief unto your Lordship. Your Lordship will 
vouchsafe at your leisure to read them, and command me when you 
will have me attend your Lordship ; and I beseech your Lordship to 
hold for assured that the family of my father doth and will hold your 
Lordship as a patron unto them. So, praying for your long and 
blessed Life, I humbly take my leave. 

" Your Lordship's humbly at commandment, 

"Philip Sidxey."* 

That letter was not successful. Its lost enclosures 
appear to have been referred to the Queen, and to 
have been supported by all the influence of Sir Henry 
Sidney's friends, but without efi*ect. Sir Francis Wal- 
singham wrote to tell the issue, and Sir Henry made 
no further effort to obtain assistance from the Crown. 
" Since, by your letters of the 3rd of January," he wrote 
to his friend on the 1st of March, 1583, "to my o-reat 
discomfort, I find there is no hope of rehef from her 
Majesty from my decayed estate in her Highness's 
service, — for, since ?/ou give it over, I will never make 
more means, but say, Spes et fortuna, valete ! — I am the 
more careful to keep myself able, b}^ sale of that which 
is left, to ransom me out of the servitude I live in for 
my debts.''! 

* Murdin, Burghley Papers, p. 3^2. 

t State Paper Office, MSS., Domestic Corrcsiwndence, Elizabeth, 
vol. clix. ]S"o. 1. 



362 A MEMOIR OF SIR PHILIP SIDNia^. [Chap. Xll. 

Philip also was disposed to retrench. Sick at heart, 
and sick in body, he left London, very soon after writing 
to Lord Burghley in November, and went on a visit to 
his sister Mary. From Wilton he sent to the Earl of 
Leicester, on the 16th of December, a somewhat mys- 
terious letter. " I am bold to trouble your Lordship 
with these few words," he said, " humbly to crave your 
Lordship's favour so far unto me that it will please you 
to let me understand whether I may, with your Lord- 
ship's leave, that I may not offend in any want of 
service, remain absent from the Court this Christmas 
time. Some occasions, both of health and otherwise, 
do make me much desire it ; but knowing how much 
my duty goes before any such causes, makes me bold 
to beseech humbly your Lordship to know your direction, 
which I will willingly follow, not only in these duties 
I am tied to, but in anything wherein I may be able to 
do your Lordship service.^' We may fairly guess that, 
among the other causes besides ill health which inclined 
Sidney to keep Christmas in privacy, the chief was a 
feeling of displeasure at the Queen's neglect of his own 
and his father's requests ; but in what particular way 
he was bound to his uncle's service, or why he should 
write with such curious show of humility, we are 
not informed. There is no difficulty, however, in 
understanding the kind and characteristic post- 
script to this letter. " I was bold of late to move 
your Lordship in the case of the poor stranger 
musician. He hath already so far tasted your Lord- 
ship's goodness, as I am rather in his behalf, humbly 
to thank your Lordship ; yet his case is such 



^^t^^ls. ] EXCHANGE OF COMPLIMENTS WITH THE QUEEN. 363 

as I am constrained to continue still a suitor to your 
Lo^ship for him/' ^'' 

Sidney was able in person to plead the cause of the 
unknown musician. The leave to absent himself from 
Court at Christmas seems not to have been granted. 
At any rate, he was in attendance upon the Queen on 
the 1st of January, 1583, and then, whatever feehngs 
were in his heart, there was no show of displeasure. 
He presented to his sovereign, as a New Year's gift, a 
beautiful golden flowerpot, shaped like a castle, and 
daintily garnished on one side with small diamonds.f 

It may have been at this season that Queen Elizabeth, 
in token of her favour, gave him a lock of her hair. 
The hair, soft and bright, and of a light brown colour, 
approaching to red, still exists, wrapped up in paper, 
thus labelled by a contemporary hand : — " This lock of 
Queen Elizabeth's own hair was presented to Sir Philip 
Sidney by her Majesty's own fair hands, on which he 
made these verses and gave them to the Queen on his 
bended knee.'' The verses, written on another bit of 
paper, and in Sidney's own handwriting, were : — 

" Her inward wortli all outward show transcends. 
Envy her merits with regret commends ; 
Like sparkling gems her virtues draw the sight, 
And in her conduct she is alvrays bright. 
"WTien she imparts her thoughts, her words have force, 
And sense and wisdom flow in sweet discourse."! 



* Sidney Papers, vol. i. p. 393. 
t Nichols, Royal Progresses, vol. ii. p. 309. 

X Notes and Queries, Series I., vol. x. p. 241. The date given, 
1573, is impossible, as Sidney was then a lad eighteen years old and 



364 A MEMOIR OF SIR nilLIP SIDNEY. [Chap. XIl. 

Another favour, greater than could be evinced in the 
gift of a lock of royal hair, was at this time sho\\^ to 
Sidney, although shown rather from necessity than from 
the Queen's choice. In 1579, as we have seen, while 
Prince Casimir was in England, her Majesty had 
nominated him a Knight of the Garter, giving evidence 
of her great esteem by herself fastening upon his leg 
the badge of the Order. Unable to wait for the instal- 
lation, Casimir liad appointed his very dear friend, Mr. 
Philip Sidney, to act as his proxy,'"' and the ceremony, 
delayed nearly four years, did not take place till the 
beginning of 1583. In anticipation thereof, it became 
necessary — according to a law of the Order permitting 
no one to be proxy for another unless himself a knight 
of some sort — for a title to be conferred on Sidney, and 
this was done on the 8th of January.f From that time 
our hero, no longer plain PhiHp Sidney, Esquire, was 
to be known as Sir Philip Sidney, Knight, of Penshurst. 

Five days later, on the 13th of January, the anniver- 
sary of Queen Elizabeth^s coronation, he presented him- 
self at St. George's Chapel, Windsor, there to take 
possession of Prince Casimir's stall, and to go through 
the prescribed formalities.^ His father was there 
also, claiming the stall due to himself, and in con- 
sequence a curious question of precedence rose among 
those who had direction of the affairs. Ought not 

travelling on tlie Continent. I have therefore mentioned the circum- 
stance under the year 1583, that being the most likely period. 

* British Museum, Cotton. MSS., Galba, B. xi.'fol. 419. 

t Wood, Athence Oxonienses, vol. i. col. 519. 

X Ashmole, Order of the Garter, pp. 436, 438. Collins, Introduc- 
tion to the Sidney Paper s, p. 103, 



1583. 
^t. 21 



] HIS KNIGHTHOOD. 365 



Sir Henry Sidney, being a commoner, to take a lower 
place than his son, seeing that Sir Philip acted as re- 
presentative of a noble prince 1 ''' I have not found 
the answer. 

Both father and son, then, were in attendance upon 
the Court. To the latter, if not to the former, there 
was no little show of such royal favour as could be 
expressed in verbal compliments, in gifts of hair, and 
in the conferment of inexpensive honours. But neither 
received any of the substantial rewards to which he 
had some reasonable claim, or the opportunities of 
honest work for which he longed. We have seen 
how fruitless were Phihp's proceedings on behalf of his 
parent. Equally ineffective appear to have been some 
efforts whicL. he macTe on his own account. 

On the 23rd of July, 1582, he wrote from Hereford, 
asking Molineux to adopt suitable measures towards 
obtaining for him a place in her Majesty's Council, f 
that so he might be able to influence much more than 
was possible in his private capacity, the political move- 
ments of his country. There is no record of the imme- 
diate issue of that request, but it seems not to have 
been gratified. 

Early in the new year he made application for 
another place, indicating the same desire to be about 
some useful business. Ever since the second year of 
Queen EUzabeth's reign, his uncle Ambrose Dudley, 



* State Paper OflSce, MSS., Domestic Correspondence^ Elizaheth, 
vol. clviii. No. 11. 

t Sidney Papers, vol. i. p. 296. 



'*^66 A MEMOIR OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. [Chap. xil. 

Earl of Warwick, had held insignificant office as Master 
of the Ordnance, and now he volunteered to receive 
Philip as a partner in the work. The latter liked the 
thought, and, on the 2.7th of January, writing from the 
Court, sent a letter about it to Lord Burghley. " I 
have from my childhood been much bound to your 
Lordship," he said, " which, as the meanness of my 
fortune keeps me from ability to requite, so gives it me 
daily cause to make the bond greater by seeking and 
using your favour towards me." After that plain hint 
that he felt he was himself entitled to some more useful 
favours than he had yet received from the Crown, he 
proceeded : " The Queen, at my Lord of Warwick's 
request, hath been moved to join me in his office of 
Ordnance, and, as I learn her Majesty yields gracious 
hearing unto it, my suit is your Lordship will favour 
and further it, which, I truly affirm unto your Lordship, 
I much more desire for the being busied about 
some serviceable experience than for any other com- 
modity, which I think is but small, that can arise 
ofit."''^ 

To that request no answer appears to have been 
made. Therefore another letter was despatched, from 
Ramsbury in Wiltshire, on the 22nd of July. " With- 
out carrying with me any further reason of this bold- 
ness than your well known goodness unto me," he here 
wrote, "I humbly crave of your Lordship your good 
word to her Majesty for the confirming that grant she 
once made unto me, of joining me in patent with my 

* Sidney Papers, vol. i. p. 393. 



15S3. 



28.] A YEEY MEMOEABLB GIFT. 367 



Lord of Warwick, whose desire is that it should be so. 
The larger discoursing hereof I will omit as superfluous 
to your wisdom ; neither will I use more plenty of words 
till God make me able to point them in some serviceable 
effect towards your Lordship." '" But to this second 
request also I can find no reply ; probably none was 
sent. There is extant no further reference to the sub- 
ject until about two years later. In the meanwhile 
Sidney found other and more stirring occupation for 
his thoughts. 

During the first half of the year 1583, or at some 
earlier period, he received from the Queen one gift 
which, though worthless to the giver, was of very real 
importance. By her Majesty's letters patent he was 
" licensed and authorized to discover, search, find out, 
view, and inhabit certain parts of America not yet dis- 
covered, and out of those countries, by him, his heirs, 
factors, or. assignees, to have and enjoy, to him, his 
heirs, and assignees for ever, such and so much quantity 
of ground as should amoimt to the number of thirty 
hundred thousand acres of ground and wood, with all 
commodities, jurisdictions, and royalties, both by sea 
and land, with full power and authority that it should 
and might be lawful for the said Sir Philip Sidney, his 
heirs and assignees, at all times thereafter to have, take, 
and lead in the said voyage, to travel thitherwards or 
to inhabit there with him or them, and every or any of 
them, such and so many her Majesty's subjects as should 
wiUingly accompany him and them and every or any of 

* Miscellaneous Works, p. 357. 



308 A MEMOIR OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. [CnAP. xii. 

them, with sufficient shipping and furniture for their 
transportations." "' 

That Sidney should have sought and obtained, from 
a sovereign famous for her obstinate restraining of all 
her courtiers within the precincts of the Court, per- 
mission to search the new and barbarous continent of 
America, and there found a colony, betokens great zeal 
and a very strong determination on his part. That he 
was one of the earliest patrons and most energetic 
champions of the movement by which origin was given 
to the great empire of the United States, is a circum- 
stance redounding not a little to his credit. Other and 
more pressing claims arose to hinder, and soon to make 
impossible, his own departure as leader of the first 
North American colony of Englishmen ; but he did 
very memorable and thankworthy service in encourag- 
ing others to undertake and prosecute the work. 

For many years past he had been largely interested 
in the various schemes for Atlantic voyaging and explo- 
ration. In 1577 and 1578 we saw him so far tempted 
to join in Captain Frobisher's projected journeys, by a 
North West Passage, to the Indies, or to the interme- 
diate islands of gold, as to arouse Hubert Languet's 
fears, and to draw from him earnest arguments and 
entreaties. In the autumn of 1580 his attention had 
been arrested by the exploits, everywhere discussed and 
everywhere praised, of Captain Francis Drake, lately 
returned from four years of saihng in wild parts. 



* State Paper Office, MSS., Domestic Correspondence^ Elizabeth, 
vol. clxi. No. 44. 



if 28.] SIR HUMPHREY GILBERT; 369 

" About the world lie hath been, and rich he is re- 
turned/' he wrote to his brother Eobert/'' But neither 
Frobisher's scheme of barren journeying in the north, 
nor Drake's plan of destroying Spanish settlements and 
appropriating Spanish treasures in the south, was quite 
to the liking of Sidney. With real pleasure he entered 
into the viewgf-about peaceful voyaging to accessible 
parts, of which Sir Humphrey Gilbert was the first 
eloquent expounder both in theory and in practice. 

For many years Gilbert must have been well known 
to Sidney. Born about the year 1539, he had been 
employed in Ireland for some time previous to 1576, 
and by his brave service had won the hearty esteem of 
Sidney's father, at that time Lord Deputy. At Sir 
Henry's recommendation he was appointed President of 
Munster, and by him he was knighted in 1570, being 
then about thirty years of age. Soon after that date he 
returned to England, and, gathering round him some 
friends of kindred mind, he appears to have at once 
begun laying plan» for American research. On the 
22nd of March, 1574, we find that a committee was 
appointed by Queen EHzabeth to consider the petition 
of Sir Humphrey Gilbert, Sir George Peckham, MrT 
Christopher Carlyle, and others, respecting the quest of 
sundry rich and unknown lands in the western world.f 
This committee agreed to the searching of the 
northern parts of America, seeing that the region ap- 
peared to be very fruitful, to be peopled by savages of 

* Sidney Papers, vol. i. p. 285. 

+ State Paper Office, MSS. , Domestic Correspondence. Ullzaleth, vol. 
xcv. No. 63. 



370 A MEMOIR OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. [Chap. Xll. 

a mild and tractable disposition, and to be of all un- 
frequented places the only fittest and most commodious 
one for English adventurers to meddle with.''^ In con- 
sequence of this permission, Gilbert, in company with 
his half-brother, Walter Raleigh, made a voyage to 
Newfoundland, and on coming back he received as 
reward, a special grant to undertake nd|fch-western dis- 
coveries, and to occupy any lands which he found un- 
possessed by Christian princes or their subjects. f But 
the grant had no immediate issue ; he was too poor to 
prosecute his darhng object as he wished. There are 
extant some very touching letters, from himself and 
from his wife, detailing the straits to which they were 
reduced. On one occasion, writing to Walsingham 
about some money due to him from the Crown, he said 
it was a miserable thing for him, that after seven-and- 
twenty years service, he should now be subject to daily 
arrests, executions, and outlawries, and have even to 
sell his wife's clothing from ofi" her back, for the sake 
of buying food to live upon. J Thci poor man was able, 
however, to talk much and eloquently upon the subject, 
j,nd to his earnest efforts we' must mainly ascribe the 
work subsequently done. 

In the ensuing years many little voyages of exploration 
were made, the direction taken being chiefly to the parts 
of America southward of Newfoundland. In 1579, Simon 
Ferdinando, a follower of Sir Francis Walsingham^s, spent 

* State Paper Office, MSS., Colonial Correspondence, vol. i. No. 1. 
t Ibid., Domestic Correspondence, vol. cxxvi. No. 49. 
t Ibid., Domestic Correspondence, vol. cxlix. No. 66 ; July 11, 
1581. 



^t28. ] THE LEADER OP AMERICAN COLONIZATION. 371 

three months on the coast, and he and others brought 
back very glowing reports of the place and people, 
telling how there were pieces of clean gold as large as 
a man's fist to be picked up in the heads of some of the 
rivers, how the streets were broader and richer than 
those of London, how many of the cottages were stored 
with pearls, how" the banqueting-houses were built of 
crystal, with pillars often of massive silver, sometimes 
of solid gold, and how much of the scanty clothing 
which the people wore was of this same precious 
yellow ; telling, moreover, how the natives worshipped 
a devil who sometimes spoke to them in the semblance 
of a calf, how there were great beasts, as large as two 
ordinary oxen, which it was great sport to kill, and how 
there were fiery dragons which made the air very red 
as they flew about. ■^'' 

Such stories could not fail to rouse the enthusiasm of all, 
and the enterprizing spirit of very many. "Most zealous 
of all appears to have been Sir PhiHp Sidney. To him, 
as the leader of the whole work, his old college fi:iend, 
E-ichard Hakluyt, dedicated his first small collection of 
Voi/ages, published in 1582. By him was obtained from 
Queen EKzabeth, as we have seen, a charter for the posses- 
sion of three milhon acres of such land as he might find 
and inhabit. Save the grant to Sir Humphrey Gilbert, 
dated 1574, that is the earhest known carter of coloni- 
zation issued by the Queen. 

But Sidney, if not quite so impoverished as Gilbert, 

* State Paper Office, MSS., Colonial Correspondence^ vol. i. No. 2. 
The beasts, of course, were buffaloes, and tlie fiery dragons may liave 
been fancied in the aurora borealis. 

B B 2 



372 A MEMOIR OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. [Cuap. xii. 

was at present too poor to undertake the suitable 
equipment of a fleet of discovery and the proper mainte- 
nance of a colony, when formed, until regular means of 
subsistence had been estabUshed. Moreover, besides 
the lack of money, there were many weighty reasons 
for his remaining at home. If his courtly bonds had been 
loosened, by personal and family ties he was too closely 
bound to England for him to quit it at this time. There- 
fore he postponed the intended expedition. A year or 
two later he renewed his projects, and planned more 
zealously than ever for his own voyaging ; but for the 
present he was walling to depute the work to some one 
else. This he did in July, 1583. In that month I find 
that " for the more speedy execution of her Majesty's 
grant, and the enlargement of her Majesty's dominions 
and governments ; for the better encouragement of Sir 
George Peckham and his associates in so worthy and 
commendable an enterprize ; as also for divers other 
causes specially moving him f he gave to his friend 
permission to discover and take possession, in his name, 
with full holding of " all royalties,- titles, pre-eminences, 
privileges, liberties, and dignities, thereunto belonging." 
It was provided that the same tenure should belong to 
any guild, or body pohtic or corporate, formed by Sir 
George in furtherance of the discovery ; and further- 
more. Sir Phil^ declared himself " contented and agreed 
that all and every such sum or sums of money and other 
commodities whatsoever, which should be procured, 
gotten, or received, of any of the persons, guild, or 
body aforesaid, adventuring for and towards the said 
discovery, should be paid to the same Sir George, or 



2EuVi] FRANCES WALSINGHAM. 373 

his heirs, for and towards his and their charges in 
furnishing and setting forth a supply of shipping, 
victual, munition and other necessaries into thfe same 
countries, without any account to be yielded there-for 
by the same Sir George or his heirs, unto the said Sir 
Phihp Sidney or his heirs/^''^ 

The articles of that transfer were drawn up in July, 
1583. Of the " divers causes and considerations especially 
moving '' Sir Philip Sidney to effect it, undoubtedly the 
strongest was his recent marriage with Frances Wals- 
ingham, eldest daughter of the famous Secretary of 
State, Sidney's dear friend of ten years' standing. 

Of this lady's life and character we know but little. 
It is a circumstance prejudicial to her that very soon 
after her husband's death, and still nearer to the de- 
cease of her father, she should have been willing- 
steal thily to become the wife of Robert Devereux, the 
flashing Earl of Essex. It is still less creditable that 
she allowed very little time to elapse, after her second 
husband's execution, before she changed her religion 
with a view of marrying Richard de Burgh, Earl of 
Clanricarde. But in the temper of her age, and in the 
special circumstances of her position, there may have 

* State Paper 0£&ce, MSS. , Domestic Series Mizaheth, vol. clxi. No. 
4:4:. This Sir George Peckham, as stated in the text, was one of the 
early associates of Gilbert, in the project for American colonization. 
Three years before this, he, conjointly with some others, had written 
to "Walsingham to say that Sir Humphrey Gilbert had transferred to 
them his patent for the discovery and conquest of heathen lands, and 
to ask leave for certain persons to quit England with them for that 
purpose (Ibid, vol. cxlvi. No. 40). But I cannot see that anythiDg 
came of either undertaking. 



874 A MEMOIR OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. [Chap. xil. 

been fair excuse for her conduct. Certain it is that 
Sidney highly esteemed her. Often at her father's 
house, Re must have had good opportunities of watching 
her growth, in body and mind, from very early years. 
Her identity with the "exceeding like to be good friend," 
of whom, in December, 1581, he thought in connection 
with Sir Francis and Lady Walsingham, has already been 
suggested. I imagine that her attractions, rapidly un- 
folding themselves as she passed from childhood into 
maidenhood, formed Sidney's chief inducement to break 
through his unworthy passion for Lady Rich. 

That, if w^e are to draw any meaning out of the many 
poems which he wrote about it, was no easy work. 
Blinded by the fascination of a beautiful woman whom 
he had much excuse for loving, he fluttered to and fro 
for a time helplessly. 



"Like as tlie dove, wMch seeled up doth fly, 

Is neither freed, nor yet to service bound. 
But hopes to gain some help by mounttag high, 

Till want of force do force her fall to ground ; 
Right so my mind, caught by his guidiag eye, 

And thence cast off where his sweet hurt be found, 
Ha^h neither leave to live, nor doom to die, 

Nor held in ill, nor suffered to be sound ; 
But with his wings of fancies up he goes 

To high conceits, whose fruits are oft but small, 
Till wounded, blind and wearied spirit lose 

Both force to fly and knowledge where to fall. 
O happy dove, if she no bondage tried ! 
More happy I, might I in bondage bide ! " "* 



* Miscellaneous WorhSf p. 225. 



mifi'] HEART SICKNESS. 375 

Elsewhere the troubled lover expressed the same 
thought more forcibly : — 

" Finding those beams, which. I must ever love, 

To mar my mind and with my hurt to please, 
I deemed it best some absence for to prove, 

If further place might further me to ease. 
My eyes thence drawn, where lived all their light, 

Blinded forthwith in dark despair did He, 
Like to the mole, with want of guiding sight, 

Deep plunged in earth, deprived of the sky. 
In absence blind, and wearied with that woe, 

To greater woes, by presence I return ; 
Even as the fly which to the flame doth go. 

Pleased with the light that his small corpse doth burn. 
Fair choice I have, either to live or die, 
A blinded mole, or else a burned fly." * 

In such heart-sickness there was life. Long oppressed 
and well-nigh deadened by the malady which had 
seized him, the very return of vigorous health brought 
with it new and galling pain. But soon the pain and 
the malady were to depart together, and then the 
strong man was to rise from his couch and walk the 
world with new and very noble feelings, wiser for all 
the hard lessons of experience which he had learnt, 
skilful to guard against peril in the future, and resolute 
in the determination henceforth to live worthily. Sid- 
ney was all but cured when he could write thus : — - 

" Thou blind man's mark, thou fool's self-chosen snare, 
Fond fancy's scum, and dregs of scattered thought, 
Band of all evils, cradle of causeless care. 

Thou web of will whose end is never wrought, 



* Miscellcmeous Works, p. 231. 



376 A MEMOIR OF SIR PIIITJP SIDNEY. [Chap. XII. 

Desire ! desire ! I have too dearly bought. 

With price of mangled mind, thy worthless ware. 

Too long, too long asleep thou hast me brought, 
Who shouldst my mind to higher things prepare. 

But yet in vain thou hast my ruin sought, 

In vain thou mad'st me to vain things aspire, 

In vain thou kindlest all thy smoky fire ; 
For virtue hath this better lesson taught, 

Within myself to seek my only hire. 

Desiring nought but how to kill desire." * 

And he was something more than cured — he had 
earned a nobihty that he could never have won 
without triumphing in some great struggle between 
good and evil, when he could utter this song : — 

** Leave me, O love, which reachest but to dust. 
And thou my mind, aspire to higher things ; 
Grow rich in that which never taketh rust, 
'Whatever fades, but fading pleasure brings. 

Draw in thy beams, and humble all thy might 
To that sweet yoke, where lasting freedoms be, 

Which breaks the clouds, and opens forth the light 
That doth both shine and give us sight to see. 

O, take fast hold ! let that light be thy guide 

In this small course which birth draws out to death, 

And think how evil becometh him to chide. 

Who seeketh heaven and comes of heavenly breath. 

Then farewell world, thy uttermost I see ; 

Eternal Love, maintain thy life in me."t 



* Miscellaneous Works, p, 249. 

t Ibid, p. 250. Let Stella's story be told to the end. Living for 
twenty-five years after this spring of 1583, she continued to hold 
high place in the favour of the Queen, and her wit and beauty 
made her almost as great an ornament of the Court, as was her 
brother, the Earl of Essex, whom, in both good and bad features of 
mind she much resembled. After Sir Philip Sidney's death, she 



1583 
iEt. 28 



J MARRIAGE. 377 



With such pure thoughts to guide him then, Sir 
PhiHp Sidney took in marriage the daughter of the best 
and wisest friend remaining to him now that Hubert 
Languet was dead. Refusing to understand the tokens 
" though obvious to every eye/' we are told, with which 



appears to have been on very friendly terms with his kindred. In 
1595, Sir Robert Sidney became a father, and Lady Rich consented to 
be godmother to the child, notwithstanding its being afflicted with the 
then dreaded measles. She, however, was herself troubled with a 
gathering on her forehead, and in consequence the christening had to 
be several times postponed. A brisk and very amusing correspond- 
ence arose out of these matters, but at last all difficulties were over- 
come, and the ceremony was performed on New Year's eve {Sidney 
Papers, vol. i. pp. 372, 385, 386). 

About this time, or perhaps before, began her luckless intimacy 
with Sir Christopher Blount, now become her brother's zealous friend 
and prudent adviser. In his company she passed some years, bearing 
to him three children. Of this connection, however, the Elizabethan 
Court thought no ill, and in the respect paid to her by all there was 
no abatement. In 1600, Blount, who had gained the title of Lord 
Mountjoy, was sent to Ireland with a view of remedying some of the 
disasters consequent upon the Earl of Essex's iU-fated mission. While 
he was winning credit for himself and for England, and while Essex 
was earning his ignominious death. Lady Rich returned to her hus- 
band, lived amicably with him, and nursed him very tenderly during a 
dangerous illness. When Mountjoy returned to England, however, 
she went back to his society, and by mutual agreement a formal 
divorce from her husband was effected. Henceforth she lived publicly 
with her lover, and, under the new rule of King James the First, both 
received as much honour as was possible. By one of the acts of grace 
consequent upon James's accession to the English throne, Mountjoy 
was created Earl of Devonshire. In August of the same year Lady 
Rich, who according to custom had hitherto only taken rank through 
her husband as a junior baroness, was elevated to the title and dignity 
of the most ancient Earls of Essex, the Bouchiers, and thus had pre- 
cedence of all the Earl's daughters in the kingdom, with the exception 
of four (State Paper Office, MSS. , Domestic Correspondence, James I. , 
vol. iii. No. 25). Upon the virtuous Queen she was a favourite 



37S A MEMOIR OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. [Chap. XII. 

many noble ladies " ventured, as far as modesty would 
permit, to signify their affections unto him," he must 
have had sound reason for making preference of Fanny 
Walsingham. The quaint writer from whom I have 
just quoted, may be trusted when he adds that, " though 
Sir Philip received no considerable accruement of means 
by his match, yet accounting virtue a portion to itself, 
he so affectionately loved her that herein he was exem- 
plary to all gentlemen not to carry their love in their 
purses, or so to consult profit as to prefer it before 
merit in marriage." ^^' 

Of the date of the marriage we have no precise 
knowledge. It probably took place very soon after the 
1st of March. On that day it was the subject of a 
letter from Sir Henry Sidney to Sir Francis "Walsingham. 

attendant (Ibid., vol. iii No. 89), and not a word of scandal was 
spoken of her. 

But in 1605 the Earl and his mistress resolved upon taking what 
now a-days would be thought the best possible step towards blotting 
out the stain of their union. On the 26th of December they were 
married at Wanstead ; little anticipating the result of the wedding. 
Straightway the whole Court was in a ferment. In pious horror King 
James protested against the wickedness of marrying one who had 
been put away by her husband : it was a grievous violation of God's 
law, and could not be looked upon with sufficient abhorrence. The 
courtiers echoed the same language, and Devonshire found that by this 
one rash act he had cancelled all the hardly earned credit of years. 
He defended himself in a long letter to the King, and referred the 
case to the Ecclesiastical Judges. But he died almost immediately, 
on the 3rd of April following. The quartering of the arms of Essex 
with those of his own house upon his tomb was forbidden, and his 
wife's claims to widowhood were never recognized. She died next 
year, 1607, at the age of forty-four. Certainly Stella's history is a 
strange one, and needs no commentary to point its moral ! 

* The Life and Death of Sir Philip Sidney. 



Mt^ls. ] MAREIAGE. 379 

"I have understood of late/' he said, "that coldness 
is thought in me, in proceeding in the matter of the 
marriage of our children. In truth, sir, it is not so, 
nor so shall it ever be found. I most willingly agree, 
and protest I joy in the alliance with all my heart." 
The only reason for his being backward in forwarding 
the proposed union was detailed in a passage already 
quoted. He was too poor to furnish his son with an 
income suitable to his needs as a husband. Partly with 
this in view, he said, he had for many months past been 
hoping that some such emolument as he knew that he 
deserved, would be accorded to him ; but the Secretary's 
letter of the 3rd of January, had finally robbed him of 
all hope. 

It was not only for his son that he had hoped ; his 
own necessities were very great, as he suggested in 
some curious sentences, very noteworthy for their 
indication of the difference of thought prevailing on 
many points between the Elizabethan age and our own. 
" Afe I know, sir," he observed, "that it is for the virtue 
which is, or which you suppose is, in my son, that you 
made choice of him for your daughter, refusing haply 
far greater and far richer matches than he, so was my 
confidence great, that by your good means, I might 
have obtained some small reasonable suit of her Majesty, 
and therefore I nothing regarded any present gain, for 
if I had, I might have received a great sum of money for 
my goodwill of my soris marriage, greatly to the relief 
of my present biting necessity. For truly, sir, I respect 
nothing by provision or prevention of that which may 
come hereafter, as this : I am not so unlucky but that 



3S0 A MEMOIR OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. [Chap. xil. 

I may be so employed as I may have occasion to sell 
land to redeem myself out of prison ; nm" yet am I so 
old, nor my wife so healthy, hut that she may die, and 
I marry again and get children. If such a thing should 
happen, God's law and man's law will that both one and 
other be provided for. Many other accidents of regard 
might be alleged, but none do I respect, only to acquit 
me of the thraldom I now live in for my debts." It is 
odd that so loving and really unselfish a man as Sir 
Henry Sidney should have thought and written in such 
terms as these. But whatever grounds he had for wishing 
to better his condition, it was very hard, very pitiful that 
so able a servant of the Queen, one of whose noble deeds 
the marks are yet standing in many parts of Ireland 
and of Wales, should have been left to live on in poverty 
and with the possibility of a prison, while to worthless 
courtiers vast estates and splendid sinecures were being 
given in payment for nothing but their handsome 
persons and their great skill in flattery. But so it was. 
In Sir Philip Sidney's short career there was sure fore- 
boding of '•' present biting necessity," as great as his 
father's had he lived as long. 

Having begun his letter with a plain statement of 
his troubles. Sir Henry proceeded at length to show 
what sort of work he had done for the Crown, and how 
the Crown had recompensed him. Many passages of 
the autobiographical sketch have been already quoted 
in illustration of his own and his son's career. " And 
now, dear sir, and brother," wrote the Lord President 
in conclusion, " an end to this tedious, tragical treatise ; 
tedious for you to read ; tragical I may well term it, 



^Sl-2^9^'] MAREIED LIFE. 381 

for that it began with the joyful love and great liking, 
with likelihood of matrimonial match, between our 
most dear and sweet children (whom God bless !) and 
endeth with declaration of my unfortunate and bad 
estate. Our Lord bless you with long Hfe and health- 
ful happiness ! I pray you, sir, commend me most 
heartily to my good lady, cousin and visitor, your wife ; 
and bless and buss our sweet daughter. And, if you 
will vouchsafe, bestow a blessing upon the young knight, 
Sir Philip.'^ ''^ 

That letter being written in March, we must suppose 
that the "joyful love and great liking" between Sir 
Philip Sidney, aged eight-and-twenty, and Mistress 
Frances "Walsingham, who could hardly have been more 
than fifteen years old, issued in marriage on some day 
in the ensuing spring or early summer. Of the exact 
date there is no record, nor can I find any detail of 
Sidney's movements or occupations between the 22nd 
of July, 1583, when he was at Ramsbury, in Wiltshire, 
writing to Lord Burghley, as we have seen, and the 8th 
of Jul}'-, 1584, when he was in attendance upon Queen 
Elizabeth. For a great part of this year he was pro- 
bably leading a retired life, in the full enjoyment of his 
altered condition as a married man. At intervals he 
was doubtless moving, less gaily and more worthily, 
within the circle of the Court. We may infer from his 
subsequent proceedings, that in this waiting-time he 
was watching, very eagerly and very thoughtfully, the 



* State Paper Office, MSS., Domestic Corrcsjjondencej Mizabeth^ 
vol. clix. No 1. 



382 A MEMOIR OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. [Chxp. xil. 

progress of affairs in the world of politics. We have 
evidence that he was also walking nobly, hke a king 
who chose to go uncrowned, in the world of letters. 
This year, though so blank to us, must have been any- 
thing but an idle and ill-spent one. 



CHAPTER XIII. 



LATER WHITINGS. 

1583—1585. 



If The Arcadia deserves to be read for its indication 
of the state of Sidney's mind while yet in courtly bond- 
age, The Defence of Poesie, only one sixteenth as long, 
affords delightful study to all who would understand 
the strength and beauty of his unfettered intellect. 
Upon it, chiefly, Sidney's fame as an author will always 
rest. It must ever be regarded as one of the choicest 
ornaments of Elizabethan literature. 

It was a thoroughly original work. Very little had 
been written in foreign languages, and there was nothing 
in English, which could rob him of renown as the fore- 
most literary critic of real worth. Of verbal criticism 
there had been much ; and hardly anything of this 
kind could be better than a work already mentioned, 
Thomas Wilson's Arte of Rhetor ique, published in 1554. 
Wilson, indeed, professing to speak only of the right 
use of words, had occasionally turned aside to offer wise 
judgment upon the sense wrapped up in the words of 
famous authors ; but such remarks were merely inci- 
dental. Sidney may have found more precedent in the 
Poetics of Julius Caesar Scaliger, wherein after much des- 
cription of the various sorts of poems, of the different 



384. A MEMOIR OF SIR rillLIP SIDNEY. [Cuap. Xlll. 

metres, and of all possible figures of speech and turns 
of language, he presented a lengthy comparison of 
Homer with Virgil, and a criticism of the various modern 
writers of Latin verse. But the Poetics, though it may 
possibly have suggested the writing of The Defence of 
Poesie, can have done no more. 

The real suggestion came from the Puritan element 
in the thought of that age. In the minds of many 
honest thinkers there had lately grown up, a strong 
distaste for poetry, " which," said Sidney, " from 
almost the highest estimation of learning, is fallen to be 
the laughing-stock of children.'^ On this account, he 
averred, " I — who, I know not by what mischance, in 
these my not old years and idlest times, having shpped 
into the title of a poet — am provoked to say something 
unto you in the defence of that my unelected voca- 
tion." He came forward as the champion, not simply of 
poetry, according to the modern limits of the word, but 
of all elegant and imaginative writing, including such 
works as his ow^n Arcadia ; for, he said, " it is not 
rhyming and versing that maketh poetry ; one may 
be a poet without versing, and a versifier without 
poetry/^ It is worth our while to look carefully at 
the argument of the book. 

Sidney began by charging with ungratefulness those 
who, professing learning, sought to defame that which 
had ever been the first destroyer of ignorance and the 
first nurse of young peoples, whom it fitted to be after- 
w^ards fed on tougher knowledge. What but poets were 
Homer and Hesiod and others'? and were they not justly 
to be called the founders of learning ? '' For not only 



if 28. ] THE DEFENCE OF POESIE. 385 

in time they had this priority, (although in itself anti- 
quity be venerable,) but went before them, as causes to 
draw, with their charming sweetness, the wild untamed 
wits to an admiration of knowledge. So, as Amphion 
was said to move stones with his poetry to build Thebes, 
and Orpheus to be listened to by beasts, — indeed, stony 
and beastly people, — so among the Eomans were Livius, 
Andronicus, and Ennius ; so in the Italian language — 
the first that made it to aspire to be a treasure-house of 
science were the poets Dante, Boccaccio, and Petrarch ; 
so in our English were Gower and Chaucer, after whom, 
encouraged and delighted with their excellent foregoing, 
others have followed to beautify our mother-tongue, as 
well in the same kind as other arts." For a long time 
the philosophers and historiographers of Greece dared 
to teach their lessons to the world only under the mask 
of poetry. Thales and Empedocles, Pythagoras and 
Solon, and a crowd of others, taught in verse. Plato, 
in his imagined dialogues and fanciful descriptions, 
clothed the strong body of philosophy with a 
beautiful garment of poetry. And Herodotus usurped 
from this same source those descriptions of pas- 
sions and particularities of battles which no man 
could have seen, and all those long orations of great 
kings or captains which certainly were never pro- 
nounced. Why, even the barbarous Indians have 
their poets, who sing to them the doings of their 
ancestors and the praises of their gods. In Ire- 
land, where learning goes very bare, poets are 
devoutly reverenced; and in Wales the bards have 
lasted through all the conquests of Eomans, Saxons, 

C 



A MEMOIR OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. [Chap. XIII. 

Danes, and Normans, whereby it was sought to expel 
even the memory of learning. 

Among the E-omans a poet was called vates, a diviner ; 
and better still, the Greeks named him Trotr^r?;?, a maker ; 
and surely he is both. There is no other art so deep- 
drawn and so inspired. The astronomer traces nature's 
work by looking on the stars. The geometrician builds 
only with known quantities. The musician but mea- 
sures invented sounds with the natural voice. The moral 
philosopher founds his teaching upon known virtues, 
and vices, and passions. The lawyer says what men 
have determined ; the historian what they have done. 
The grammarian, rhetorician, and logician, simply shape 
rules out of the experiences of nature : and so with other 
workers. " Only the poet, disdaining to be tied to any 
such subjection, lifted up with the vigour of his own 
invention, doth grow in effect into another nature, in 
making things either better than nature bringeth forth, 
or quite anew ; forms such as never were in nature, as 
the heroes, demi-gods, Cyclops, Chimeras, fairies, and 
such like ; so as he goeth hand in hand with nature ; 
not enclosed within the narrow warrant of her gifts, but 
freely ranging within the zodiac of his own wit. Nature 
never set forth the earth in so rich tapestry as divers 
poets have done, neither with so pleasant rivers, 
fruitful trees, sweet-smelling flowers, nor whatsoever 
else may make the too-much-loved earth more 
lovely. Her world is brazen : the poets only de- 
liver a golden/"^ "But these arguments will by few 
be understood, and by fewer granted. Thus much 
I hope will be given me, that the Greeks with some 



1583. 

JEt. 28. 



] DEFINITION OF POETKY. 387 



probability of reason gave them the name above all 
names of learning/' 

After an introduction of this sort, Sidney proceeded 
to an orderly view of his subject. Poetry, he said is 
of three kinds. The first and noblest is that which sets 
forth the inconceivable excellences of God ; but of it not 
much need be remarked, for against it no one in his 
right mind will protest. The second deals with philo- 
sophical, or moral, or natural, or historical matter, and 
is w^orthy of commendation. But the best part of such 
poetry belongs truly to the third kind of poetry, wherein 
invention has free scope ; where those who exercise it, 
using wisely their knowledge of what goes on around 
them, but not drawing from it their inspiration, teach 
men to know thoroughly what goodness is, and move 
them gladly to seek after it. 

Of this third kind of poetry, there are many 
divisions. "The most notable be the heroic, lyric, 
tragic, comic, satyric, iambic, elegiac, pastoral, and 
certain others ; some of these being termed according 
to the matter they deal with, some by the sort of verse 
they like best to write in ; for, indeed, the greatest 
part of poets have apparelled their poetical inventions 
in that numerous kind of writing which is called 
verse.^' Yet verse, we are told, is " but an ornament, 
and no cause to poetry ; since there have been many 
most excellent poets that never versified, and now 
swarm many versifiers that need never answer to the 

name of poets It is not rhyming and versing 

that maketh a poet, no more than a long gown maketh 
an advocate, who, though he pleaded in armour, should 



388 A MEMOIR OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. [Cuap.xiii. 

be an advocate and no soldier. But it is that feigning 
notable images of virtues, vices, or what else, with that 
delightful teaching, which must be the right describing 
note to know a poet by ; although, indeed, the senate 
of poets have chosen verse as their fittest raiment, 
meaning, as in matter they passed all, so in manner to 
go beyond them ; not speaking table-talk fashion, or 
like men in a dream, words as they chanceably fall 
from the mouth, but piecing each syllable of each 
word by just proportion, according to the dignity of 
the subject." 

And what rank shall poetry have among the pro- 
ducts of human genius ? Let it be granted, said 
Sir Philip Sidney, that, of this purifying of wit, en- 
riching of memory, strengthening of judgment, and 
enlarging of conceit, which we commonly call learning, 
the one end is "to lead and draw us to as high a 
perfection as our degenerate souls, made worse by their 
clay-lodgings, can be capable of.'' Some have sought 
by astrology to seek out and appropriate the secrets of 
heayenly wisdom ; some, thinking that they knew the 
final causes of things, have professed to be natural and 
supernatural philosophers ; some have essayed to de- 
monstrate everything by mathematics, yet all have 
had one object, " to lift up the mind from the dungeon 
of the body to the enjoying of his own divine essence." 
But when, by the balance of experience; it was found 
that the astronomer, looking at the stars, might fall into 
a ditch, that the inquiring philosopher might be blind 
in himself, and the mathematician might draw forth a 
straight hne with a crooked heart, then lo I did proof, 



ifss. ] POETEY, THE BEST TEACHER. 389 

the over-ruler of opinions, make manifest that all these 
are but serving sciences, which, as they have a private 
end in themselves, so yet are they all directed to the 
highest end of the mistress knowledge, by the Greeks 
called apxLT€KToi'LK7j^ whlch stands, as I think, in the 
knowledge of a man's self, in the ethic and prolific 
consideration, with the end of well-doing and not of 
well-knowing only. Therefore, the ending end of all 
earthly learning being virtuous action, those skills that 
most serve to bring forth that have a most just title 
to be princes over all the rest ; wherein, if we can 
show it rightly, the poet is worthy to have it before any 
competitors." 

But there are many competitors ; two, especially, 
being worthy of note — the moral philosopher and the 
historian. Philosophy and history, it will be remem- 
bered, were the favourite pursuits of Sidney ten years 
earlier in his life. The progress of his mind is ad- 
mirably illustrated by the way in which he here, while 
largely honouring them, gave to poetry a larger honour. 
Of the philosophers he said, in an unkind bit of most 
polished sarcasm, " Methinks I see them coming toward 
me with a sullen gravity, as though they could not 
abide vice by daylight ; rudely clothed, for to witness 
outwardly their contempt of outward things ; with 
books in their hands against glory, whereto they set 
their names ; sophistically speaking against subtilt}^, 
and angry with any man in whom they see the foul 
fault of anger.'^ Close upon their heels is the historian, 
" laden with old mouse-eaten records, authorizing him- 
self, for the most part, upon other histories, whose 



390 A MEMOIR OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. [Cuap. Xlll- 

greatest autliorities are built upon the notable founda- 
tion of hearsay ; having much ado to accord differing 
writers, and to pick truth out of partiality ; better 
acquainted with a thousand years ago than with the 
present age, and yet better knowing how this world 
goes than how his own wit runs ; curious for antiquities 
and inquisitive of novelties, a wonder to young folks 
and a tyrant in table-talk/^ In words very apt and 
pithy, Sidney then showed how each of these teachers 
vaunted his own vocation ; the gist of their disputation 
being that, each seeking to be honest teachers of right- 
eousness, the one taught only by precept, the other 
only by example. 

" But both, not having both, do both halt. For the 
philosopher, setting down with thorny arguments the 
bare rule, is so hard of utterance, and so misty to be 
conceived, that one that hath no other guide but him 
shall waste in him till he be old, before he shall find 
sufficient cause to be honest ; for his knowledge standeth 
so upon the abstract and general, that happy is that 
man who can understand him, and more happy that can 
apply what he doth understand. On the other side, 
the historian, wanting the precept, is so tied, not to 
what should be but to what is, to the particular truth 
of things and not to the general reason of things, that 
his example draweth no necessary consequence, and 
therefore a less fruitful doctrine. Now doth the 
peerless poet perform both." 

At great length, and with admirable clearness, Sidney 
proceeded to prove this assertion. Of those truths 
which the philosopher vaguely presents, the poet gives 



^t^fs.] POETRY ABOTE PHILOSOPHY AXD HISTORY. 391 

a perfect picture, " for he yieldeth to the powers of the 
mind an image of that whereof the philosopher be- 
stoweth but a wordish description, which doth neither 
strike, pierce, nor possess the sight of the soul, so 
much as that other doth/' He talks to us about 
patriotism, and we only dimly follow him ; yet ^' let 
us but hear old Anchises speaking in the middle of 
Troy's flames, or see Ulysses, in the fulness of all 
Calypso's delights, bewail his absence from barren and 
beggarly Ithaca," and we shall understand what love of 
country means. " Anger, the stoics say, was a short 
madness : let but Sophocles bring you Ajax on a stage, 
kilhng or whipping sheep and oxen, thinking them the 
army of Greeks, with their chieftains Agamemnon and 
Menelaus ; and tell me, if you have not a more familiar 
insight into anger than finding in the schoolman his 
genus and difference. See whether wisdom and tem- 
perance in Ulysses and Diomedes, valour in Achilles, 
friendship in Nisus and Euryalus, even to an ignorant 
man, carry not an apparent shining ; and, contrarily, 
the remorse of conscience in (Edipus, the soon-repenting 
pride in Agamemnon, the self- devouring cruelty in his 
father Atreus, the violence of ambition in the two 
Theban brothers, the sour sweetness of revenge in 
Medea, and, to fall lower, the Terentian Gnatho and 
our Chaucer's Pandar, so expressed that we now use 
their names to signify their trades ; and finally, all 
virtues, vices, and passions, so in their own natural 
states laid to the view that we seem not to hear of 
them, but clearly to see through them." Surely the 
poet is the true philosopher. 



892 A MEMOIR OP SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. [Chap, XIII. 

And is not a chief part of the praise commonly given 
to history, the rightful property of poetry ? History 
provides examples whereby virtue may be followed 
and vice shunned. But poetry does this far better. 
The records of the past are often such as to deter 
men from well-doing, and to encourage them to un- 
bridled wickedness. " For see w^e not Miltiades rot in 
his fetters '? the just Phocion and the accomplished 
Socrates put to death like traitors '? the cruel Severus 
live prosperously '? the excellent Severus miserably 
murdered ? Sylla and Marius dying in their beds ^ 
Pompey and Cicero slain then when they would have 
thought exile a happiness ? See we not virtuous Cato 
driven to kill himself, and rebel Caesar so advanced that 
his name yet, after sixteen hundred years, lasteth in the 
highest honour V But the poet ever so clothes good- 
ness in his best colours, that none can help being 
enamoured of her; and evil, when brought upon the 
stage, is so manacled that no one is tempted to follow it. 

It appears, then, that of all sciences, — passing by 
theology, which is not to be measured with human 
learning, and law, which is not a very noble pursuit, 
seeing that it " doth not endeavour to make men good, 
but that their evil hurt not others, having no care, 
so he be a good citizen, how bad a man be,'' — the poet's 
is the grandest, " for he doth not only show the way, 
but giveth so sweet a prospect into the way, as will 
entice any man to enter into it ; nay, he doth, as 
if your journey should he through a fair vineyard, at 
the very first give you a cluster of grapes, that, full of 
that taste, you may long to pass further. He beginneth 



mtfi] THE poet's GREATNESS. 393 

not witli obscure definitions, which must blur the margin 
with interpretations and load the memory with doubt- 
fulness, but he cometh to you ^vith words set in delight- 
ful proportion, either accompanied with or prepared 
for the will-enchanting skill of music, and with a tale, — 
forsooth, he cometh unto you with a tale which holdeth 
children from play and old men from the chimney- 
corner, and, pretending no more, doth intend the 
winning of the mind from wickedness to virtue. Even 
as the child is often brought to take most wholesome 
things by hiding them in such other as have a pleasant 
taste, which, if one should tell them the nature of the 
aloes or rhubarb they should receive, would sooner take 
their physic at their ears than at their mouth ; so it is 
in men, most of whom are childish in the best things 
till they be cradled in their graves. Glad they will be 
to hear the tales of Hercules, Achilles, Cyrus, iEneas ; 
and hearing them, must needs hear the right description 
of wisdom, valour, and justice, which if they had been 
barely, — that is to say, philosophically, — set out, they 
would swear they be brought to school again.^' " And 
so," said Sidney, after much further argument, and 
many other illustrations aptly chosen and gracefully 
presented, " a conclusion not unfitly ensues, — that as 
virtue is the most excellent resting-place for all worldly 
learning to make his end of, so poetry, being the most 
famiHar to teach it and most princely to move towards 
it, in the most excellent work is the most excellent 
workman." 

From general praise of poesy, Sidney passed to a 
summing up of its parts. " There is the pastoral poem, 



394 A MEMOIR OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. [Chap. xiii. 

teaching lofty lessons under lowly examples, showing 
the whole considerations of wrong-doing and of patience 
under pretty tales of sheep and shepherds. There is 
the lamenting elegiac, bewailing the weakness of man- 
kind and the wretchedness of the world. There is the 
bitter but wholesome iambic, " making shame the 
trumpet of villany, with bold and open crying out 
against naughtiness.^' There is the satiric, which sets 
a man laughing at his folly till he is forced to avoid it. 
There is comedy, painting the common errors of our 
life so scornfully that no beholder can go away content 
to follow them any longer. There is the high and ex- 
cellent tragedy, " that openeth the greatest wounds and 
show^eth forth the ulcers that are covered with tissue, 
that maketh kings fear to be tyrants and tyrants to 
manifest their tyrannical humours, that, with stirring 
the effects of admiration p^nd commiseration, teacheth 
the uncertainty of this w^orld, and upon how weak 
foundations gilded roofs are builded.'^ There is the 
lyric, giving praise, the reward of virtue, to virtuous 
acts. " Certainly, I must confess mine own barbarous- 
ness; I never heard the old song of Percy and Douglas, 
that I found not my heart moved more than with a 
trumpet : and yet it is sung but by some blind crowder, 
with no rougher voice than rude style ; which being so 
evil apparelled in the dust and cobweb of that uncivil 
age, what would it work trimmed in the gorgeous 
eloquence of Pindar '?"* Lastly, there is the heroical, 

* The Ancient Ballad of Chevy-Chase, published by Percy (Re- 
liqices, Series i. book 1), is doubtless the one referred to by Sidney. 
The later version {Reliqiies, Series i. book 3) was composed soon after 
his day, perhaps at the suggestion made in the text. 



E^fis.] THE poet's greatness. 395 



^t 



whose very name should daunt all backbiters, " who 
doth not only teach and move to truth, but teacheth and 
moveth to the most high and excellent truth, who maketh 
magnanimity and justice shine through all misty fear- 
fulness and foggy desires.'^ 

"Since, then, poetry is of all human learnings the 
most ancient and of most fatherly antiquity, as from 
whence other learnings have taken their beginnings ; 
since it is so universal that no learned nation doth 
despise it, nor barbarous nation is without it ; since both 
Ptomans and Greeks gave such divine names unto it, 
the one of prophesying and the other of making, and 
that indeed that name of making is fit for him, con- 
sidering that, where all other arts retain themselves 
within their subject, and receive as it were their being 
from it, the poet only bringeth his own stuff, and doth 
not learn a conceit out of a matter, but maketh matter 
for a conceit ; since neither his description nor end 
containeth any evil ; since his effects be so good as to 
teach goodness, and delight the learners of it ; since 
therein — namely, in moral doctrine, the chief of all 
knowledges — J|e doth not only far pass the historian 
but, for instructing, is well-nigh comparable to the 
philosopher, and, for moving, leaveth him behind 
him ; since the Holy Scripture, wherein there is 
no uncleanness, hath whole parts in it poetical, and 
that even our Saviour Christ vouchsafed to use the 
flowers of it ; since all his kinds are, not only in their 
united forms, but in their severed dissections, fully 
commendable ; I think, and think I think rightly, 
the laurel-crown appointed for triumphant captains, 



396 A MEMOIR OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. [Chap. XIII. 

doth worthily, of all other learnings, honour the poet's 
triumph." 

But all do not think so, said Sidney. Therefore in 
the second half of his treatise, he enumerated the objec- 
tions which foolish cavillers raised to poetry, and an- 
swered them in detail. Besides the very idle complaints 
against rhyme, as rhyme and in opposition to prose, 
there are four chief charges against poetry. 

The first objection, that, '^ there being many other more 
fruitful knowledges, a man might better spend his time in 
them than in this," has already been fully answered in 
showing the great power of poesy in teaching and 
moving men to virtue. Besides, even granting the 
first assumption, it does not follow that good is not 
good because better is better. 

The second accusation, that poetry is the mother of 
lies, Sidney asserted to be so far untrue, that of all 
writers under the sun the poet is the least liar. All 
others, and most of all the historian, affirming many 
things, can hardly escape from many false statements. 
But the poet never affirms : he presents, not stories of 
what has been, but pictures of what ought to be, or 
ought not be ; and even though he gives real names to 
his heroes, no one past childhood can be deceived by 
what he writes. 

A third complaint is, that poetry is the nurse of 
abuse, infecting us with many pestilent desires, with a 
syren sweetness drawing the mind to sinful fancies. 
'•' They say the comedies rather teach than reprehend 
amorous conceits ; they say the lyric is larded with 
passionate sonnets, the elegiac weeps the want of his 



Mt%,] OBJECTIONS TO POETRY. 397 

mistress, and that even to the heroical Cupid hath am- 
bitiously dimbed/' " What a thankless charge this is ! '' 
exclaimed Sidney. " But grant love of beauty to be a 
beastly fault, although it be very hard, since only man, 
and no beast, hath that gift to discern beauty ; grant 
that lovely name of love to deserve all hateful reproaches, 
although even some of my masters, the philosophers, 
spent a good deal of their lamp oil in setting forth the 
excellency of it ; grant, I say, what they will have 
granted, that not only love, but lust, but vanity, but, if 
they list, sensuality, possess many leaves of the poets' 
books ; yet think I, when this is granted, they will find 
their sentence may, with good manners, put the last 
words foremost, and not say that poetry abuseth man's 
wit, but that man^s wit abuseth poetry." It is quite 
true that the poet may misuse his art ; but so may the 
physician, the lawyer, the theologian, and every other 
worker ; for it is plain that '*' whatsoever, being abused, 
doth most harm, being rightly used, doth most good." 
" Truly a needle cannot do much hurt, and as truly, — 
with leave of ladies be it spoken, — it cannot do much 
good ; '' but it is the glory of the sword that, with the 
same power which it gives to a bad man for killing 
his father, it enables a good man to deliver his 
country. Therefore this argument of abuse has no 
weight. 

Nor is there any real force in the fourth charge 
against poetry ; that, because Plato banished its pro- 
fessors from his ideal commonwealth, it is to be repro- 
bated by all loving followers of Plato. For, remember, 
said Sidney, it was not poetry that Plato banished, 



308 A MEMOIR OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. [Chap. xiii. 

but the poets of bis time. He saw tbem filbng tbc 
world with wrong opinions of God, and making bght tales 
about that unspotted Essence ; and consequently he set 
a watchword, not against poetry, but against the abuse 
of it, just as Saint Paul condemned the misuse of philo- 
sophy, yet did not at all condemn the thing itself. 
Why, Plato praised poesy far more than we dare do, 
when he declared it to be far above man's wit, the very 
inspiring of a divine force. Instead of forbidding 
poetry, he did it high honour ; he is its patron, not its 
adversary. 

After this manner Sidney defended poesy. But, 
before ending his work, he thought it well to oflfer brief 
criticism of some of the most famous poets and poems 
of England and of his own time. This part is very 
valuable, showing us at it does what he thought of his 
predecessors and his competitors. First, of course, he 
spoke of the Father of English Poetry. '' Chaucer, un- 
doubtedly, did excellently in his Troilus and Cressida ; 
of whom, truly, I know not whether to marvel more, 
either that he, in that misty time, could see so clearly, 
or that we, in this clear age, go so stumblingly after 
him." It is rather curious that Sidney selected Chau- 
cer's second best work for mention, rather than The 
Canterbury Tales, specially full of the poetic food 
he must have loved most, rich in such narratives as the 
chivalrous adventures of Palamon and Arcite in their 
rival love for Emily, or the weary wanderings of Con- 
stance, or the bitter woes of Griselda, or the courtly 
triumph of Florent, or the fancy-laden " story of Cam- 
buscan bold." But he was very scanty in his praise of 



]it^s.l ENGLISH POETS. 399 



all. The Mirror of Magistrates, published in 1559, 
with Sackville's Induction, he declared to be " meetly 
furnished of beautiful parts.'' In Surrey's lyrics, only 
printed in 1551, though the author had died in 1547, 
he could only say that there were " many things tasting 
of a noble birth and worthy of a noble mind." The 
Shepheards Kalender, lately written by his friend Spenser 
and dedicated to himself, he said, " hath much poesy in 
his eclogues, worthy the reading;" but, "that same 
framing of his style to an old rustic language I dare not 
allow, since neither Theocritus in Greek, Virgil in Latin, 
nor Sannazzaro in Italian, did affect it." In tliat judg- 
ment he was half right, an occasional fault of Spenser 
being the affectation of obsolete words that his master, 
Chaucer, had used. Sidney's severity was just also, 
when he said that of other poems — whether those of 
Gower or Lydgate in former times or those of the crowd 
of writers in his own age — " I do not remember to have 
seen but few printed that have poetical sinews in them ; 
for proof whereof, let but most of the verses be put in 
prose, and then ask the meaning, and it will be found 
that one verse did but beget another, without ordering, 
at the first, what should be at the last ; which becomes 
a confused mass of words with a tinkling sound of 
rhyme, barely accompanied with reason." 

Sidney's view of the drama was a grievously mistaken 
one, based upon the foolish traditional doctrine of the 
unities. " The stage should always represent but one 
place, and the uttermost time presupposed in it should 
be, both by Ariaifcotle's precept and common reason, but 
one day." Neither Marlowe nor Shakespeare nor Ben 



400 A MEMOIR OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. [Chap. XIII. 

Jonson had yet produced plays which would have con- 
vinced him of his error. The best and only commendable 
tragedy then written was Gorhoduc, of which he said, 
" notwithstanding it is full of stately speeches and w^ell- 
sounding phrases, climbing to the height of Seneca's 
style, as full of notable morality, which it doth most 
delightfully teach, and so obtain the very end of poesy, 
yet, in truth it is very defectuous in the circumstances, 
which grieves me, because it might not remain as an exact 
model of all tragedies. But if it be so in Gorboduc^ 
how much more in all the rest '{ where you shall have 
Asia of the one side, and Afric of the other, and so 
many other under-kingdoms, that the player when he 
comes in must ever begin with telling where he is, or 
else the tale will not be conceived. Now shall you have 
three ladies walk to gather flowers, and then we must 
beheve the stage to be a garden. By-and-by we hear 
news of a shipwreck in the same place ; then we are 
to blame if we accept it not for a rock. Upon the 
back of that comes out a hideous mbnster with fire and 
smoke ; and then the miserable beholders are bound to 
take it for a cave : while, in the meantime two armies 
fly in, represented v/ith four swords and bucklers ; and 
then what hard heart will not receive it for a pitched 
field ^ ^' This very comical account of a tragical present- 
ment, be it noted, was written before the fashion of 
studied scenery had grown up, almost before it was the 
practice to set a board conspicuously upon the stage, 
telling the audience that the scene was' laid in such 
and such a place, or amid such and suc^ circumstances. 
Other portions of Sidney's dramatic criticisms are too 



m?5. ] THE PRINCIPLES OF DRAMATIC WRITING. 401 

important to be passed by. King Lear not being yet 
written, to prove how nobly tragedy and comedy 
might be blended, he protested against the mongrel 
tragi-comedy then in Yogue. "So falleth it out that, 
having indeed no right come'dy in that comical part of 
our tragedy, we have nothing but scurrility, unworthy 
of chaste ears, or some extreme show of doltishness, 
indeed fit to lift up a loud laughter, but nothing else ; 
where the whole tract of a comedy should be full of 
delight, as the tragedy should be still maintained in a 
well-raised admiration. But our comedians think there 
is no delight without laughter ; which is very wrong ; 
for though laughter may come with delight, yet cometh 
it not of dehght, as though delight should be the cause of 
laughter ; but well may one thing breed both together. 
Nay, in themselves they have, as it were, a kind of 
contrariety. For delight we scarcely do but in things 
that have a conveniency to ourselves or to the general 
nature : laughter almost ever cometh of things most 
disproportioned to ourselves and nature. Delight 
hath a joy in it, either permanent or present : 
laughter hath only a scornful tickling. For example, 
we are ravished with delight to see a fair woman, and 
yet are far from being moved to laughter : we laugh 
at deformed creatures, wherein certainly we cannot 
delight. We delight in good chances ; we laugh at 

mischances Yet deny I not that they may go 

well together. For as in Alexander's picture, well set 
out, we delight without laughter, and in twenty mad 
antics we laugh without dehght; so in Hercules, 
painted with his great beard and furious countenance, 



402 A MEMOIR OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. [CnAP.xiii 

in a woman's attire, spinning at Omphale's command- 
ment, it breeds both delight and laughter : for the 
representing of so strange a power in love procures 
delight, and the scornfulness of the action stirreth 
laughter. But I speak to this purpose, that all the end 
of the comical part be not upon such scornful matters 
as stir laughter only, but mix with it that delightful 
teaching which is the end of poesy. And the great 
fault, even in that point of laughter, and forbidden 
plainly by Aristotle, is that they stir laughter in sinful 
things, which are rather execrable than ridiculous, or 
in miserable, which are rather to be pitied than scorned. 
For what is it to make folks gape at a wretched beggar 
and a beggarly clown ; or, against the law of hos- 
pitality, to jest at strangers because they speak not 
Enghsh so well as we do ? what do we learn since Of is 
certain — 

Nil liabet infelix paupertas durius in se 
Quam quod ridiculos homines facit? 

But rather a busy and lowering courtier and a heartless 
threatening Thraso, a self-wise seeming schoolmaster, a 
wry transformed traveller, these if we saw walk in 
stage names, which we play naturally, therein were 
delightful laughter, and teaching delightfulness." 

Thus nobly wrote one of the ablest and wisest thinkers 
that the world has ever known. In indication of his 
mind, I should like to quote much else that follows this 
paragraph, especially the parts containing the thinker's 
estimate of eloquence, and of Enghsh as the fittest of all 
languages, save Greek, for its utterance. But when the 



^{.al] THE END OF THE DEFENCE OP POESIE. 403 

final playful paragraph of the whole treatise has been 
repeated, enough will have been done to show how 
large was the ability, how deep the wisdom shown by 
Sir Philip Sidney. 

" So that since the ever praiseworthy poesy," he 
added, "is full of virtue breeding delightfulness, and 
void of no gift that ought to be in the noble name of 
learning ; since the blames laid against it are either false 
or feeble ; since the cause why it is not esteemed in 
England is the fault of poet-apes not poets ; since, 
lastly, our tongue is most fit to honour poesy and to be 
honoured by poesy ; I conjure you, all that have had 
the evil luck to read this ink-wasting toy of mine, 
even in the name of the nine muses, no more to scorn 
the sacred mysteries of poesy ; no more to laugh at the 
name of poets as though they were next inheritors to 
fools, no more to jest at the reverent title of 'a rhymer;' 
but to believe with Aristotle that they were the ancient 
treasurers of the Grecians' divinity ; to believe with 
Bembus that they were the first bringers in of all 
civility ; to believe with Scaliger that no philosophers' 
precepts can sooner make you an honest man than the 
reading of Virgil ; to believe with Clauserus, the trans- 
lator of Cornutus, that it pleased the heavenly Deity, 
by Hesiod and Homer, under the veil of fables, to give 
us all knowledge, logic, rhetoric, philosophy, natural and 
moral, and, quid non f to believe, with me, that there 
are many mysteries contained in poetry, which, of 
course, were written darkly, lest by profane wits it should 
be abused ; to believe, with Landin, that they are so be- 
loved of the gods that whatsoever they write proceeds 

D D 2 



404 A MEMOIR OP SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. [Chap.xiii. 

of a divine fury ; lastly, to believe themselves when 
they tell you they will make you immortal by their 
verses. Thus doing, your name shall flourish in the 
printer's shops : thus doing, you shall be most fair, most 
rich, most wise, most all ; you shall dwell upon super- 
latives ; thus doing, though libertiiio 'patre natus, you 
shall suddenly grow He^xulea proles, 

Si quid mea carmina possunt : 

thus doing, your soul shall be placed with Dante's 
Beatrice or Virgil's Anchises. But if (fie of such a but!) 
you be born so near the dull-making cataract of Nilus, 
that you cannot hear the planet-like music of poetry, 
if you have so earth-creeping a mind that it cannot hft 
itself up to look to the sky of poetry, or rather, by a 
certain rustical disdain, will become such a Mome as to 
be a Momus of poetry, then, though I will not wish 
unto you the asses' ears of Midas, nor to be driven by 
a poet's verses as Bubonax was to hang himself, nor to 
be rhymed to death as is said to be done in Ireland ; 
yet this much curse I must send you, in behalf of all 
the poets — that, while you live, you live in love and 
never get favour for lacking skill of a sonnet, and when 
you die 3^our memory die from the earth for want of an 
epitaph." 

The Defence of Poesie took altogether independent 
ground, but there were other books, about contempo- 
rary with it, having poetry for their theme. In 1575, 
George Gascoigne had written Certayne Notes of In- 
struction concerning the making of Verse or Ryme in 



1583. 

iEt. 28. 



] OTHER WOEKS ON POETRY. 405 



Englisli,'^ very brief and sensible, but of a much more 
technical character than the small technical parts of 
Sidney's master-piece. This appears to be the earliest 
production of the kind, and, — if we except seven notable 
letters which passed between Edmund Spenser and 
Gabriel Harvey in the years 1579 and 1580, treating 
chiefly of their unnatural scheme for naturalizing the 
classical metres in English,t — none other of the sort pre- 
ceded The Defence. In 1584 was published .^4 Treatise 
of the Airt of Scottis Poesie, the product of King 
James's genius, \ and in 1586 appeared a valuable Dis- 
course of English Poetrie, written by William Webbe, a 
student of Cambridge and probably a friend of Harvey's. § 
Webbe was enthusiastic about the classical metres, and 
included in his treatise translations of two eclogues of 
Virgil into hexameters, and of a part of the Shepheard's 
Kalendar into sapphics. A part of the treatise, how- 
ever, is skilful, Spenser's poem being mainly the text for 
critical remarks upon the various styles. From the 
parallelism in a few passages I am disposed to think 
that Webbe had seen The Defence of Poesie in manu- 
script, before writing his own humbler work. And I 
have hardly a doubt that a like privilege fell to George 
Puttenham, author of a longer and more ambitious 
Arte of English Poesie, pubhshed in 1589. || Some 



* Haslewood, Ancient Critical Essays upon English Poets and 
Poesy, vol. ii. pp. 3 — 12, 
t Ibid., vol. ii. 

X Ibid., vol. ii. pp. 101—117. 
§ Ibid., vol. ii. pp. 17 — 95. 
jl Ibid., vol. i. 



406 A MEMOIR OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. [Chap. XI II. 

passages are strikingly like those written by Sidney, to 
whom reference is frequently made, as though he were 
dead. Puttenham's style was not bad, but he went to 
absurd lengths in the elaboration of rules for ornament, 
expression and so forth. One of the passages in which 
he turned from these subjects to offer sensible criticism 
contains a review of English poets. Chaucer was praised 
with discrimination, and Wyatt and Surrey were ap- 
plauded as " the two chief lanterns of hght to all others 
that haye since employed their pens.'^ For tragedy 
honour was done to Lord Buckhurst and to Edward 
Ferrys ; and the Earl of Oxford and Eichard Edwards, 
whose play of P alamort and Arcite was performed 
before the Queen when she visited Oxford in 1566, 
were mentioned as the foremost writers of interlude and 
comedy. Puttenham gave high praise to Sidney and 
Spenser for their skill in eclogues and pastorals, to 
Raleigh for ditties and amorous odes, most lusty, inso- 
lent, and passionate, and to Edward Dyer for elegy, 
sweet and solemn, and of high conceit. " But last in 
recital and first in degree,'' said this compHmentary 
critic, " is the Queen our Sovereign Lady, whose 
learned, delicate, and noble muse easily surmounteth all 
the rest that have written before her time or since, for 
sense, sweetness, and subtilty, be it in ode, elegy, 
epigram, or any other kind of poem, heroic or lyric, 
wherein it shall please her Majesty to employ her pen, 
even by so much odds as her own excellent estate and 
degree exceedeth that of her most humble vassals." '''' 

* Haslewood, vol. i. pp. 49 — 51. 



i 



m^29-30.] THE TREWNESSE OF THE CHRISTIAI^ RELIGION. 407 

The Defence of Poesie, written after The Arcadia and 
Astrophel and Stella, and therefore probably not until 
the year 1583, was the last of Sidney's longer writings. 
In 1584 or 1585, he penned a short Discourse in De- 
fence of the Earl of Leicester. Angry at the libellous 
attack made upon his uncle in a scurrilous Dialogue 
between a Scholar, a Gentleman, and a Lawyer, better 
known as Leicester's Commonwealth, Sir Philip replied 
very indignantly, and in terms too furious to have much 
weight. It is probable that he soon repented of his 
work, and that his friends thought poorly of it. It was 
not published until some generations had elapsed.'"' 

About contemporary with that work was another and 
more important undertaking, perhaps the last studied 
exercise of Sidney's pen. Pleased with a treatise De 
Veritate Christiana, lately written by his friend Phihp 
du Plessis Mornay, and anxious that its rich truths might 
be within reach of unlearned Englishmen, he began a 
translation of it. Before many chapters had been 
written, however, public matters claimed his attention, 
and, abandoning his hterary occupations, he was led to 
spend all his strength in the world of politics. Yet the 
book was, in Sidney's eyes, too important to be neg- 
lected, and he therefore entrusted it to Arthur Golding, 
uncle to the Earl of Oxford, with a request that he 
would complete its translation as soon and as well as 
he could, and dedicate it, when done, to the Earl of 
Leicester. Golding — who, making a trade of trans- 
lating books, worked quickly and cleverly, and conse- 

* It was first printed by Collins, in the Sidney Papers. 



408 A MEMOIR OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. IChap. xill. 

quently in a life of seventy years rendered upwards of 
thirty — did his best. The translation was published in 
1587, with the title, A Worke concerning the Trew- 
nesse of the Christian Religion. 

Its character can only be very briefly indicated. It 
opens with proof of the primary doctrine that there is a 
God, and then follows a demonstration that He is One, 
and that He is One in Three Persons. God, we are told, 
is the Essence pervading all things ; He is Action. As the 
Grecian poets said and Saint Paul repeated, w^e are His 
offspring ; in Him w^e live and move and have our 
being. From Him we come, by Him we exist, to Him 
we tend. But in His unity there is Trinity. First of 
all, there is a w^orkful Power, Abilit}'', the basis of all 
action, the principle without which nothing can exist. 
Secondly, there is Understanding, Reason, Voice, the 
utterance of the Divine Thought, the principle without 
which no action can be intelligent. Thirdly, there is 
Will, the principle without which no action can be wisely 
and successfully completed. This doctrine, it is shown 
rather fancifully and at great length, was darkly pre- 
sented in all the old systems of philosophy ; it was de- 
veloped by Zoroaster, by Plato, and by every other wise 
teacher among the ancients. Moreover, it is clearly 
imaged in all the ordering of nature. For example : — 
'' In waters, we have the head of them in the earth, and 
the spring boiling out of it, and the stream which is 
made of them both sheddeth itself out far off from 
thence. It is but one self-same continual essence, w^hich 
hath neither foreness nor afterness, save only in order, 
and not in time, that is to say, according to our con- 



^fc^30.] THE TREWNESSE OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. 409 

sidering of it, haying respect to causes, not according 
to truth. For the well-head is not a head but in re- 
spect of the spring, nor the spring a spring but in 
respect of the well-head, nor a stream a stream but in 
respect of them both ; and so all three be but one 
water, and cannot almost be considered one without 
another, howbeit that the one is not the other. It is 
an express mark of the original relations and persons 
CO -essential in the only one essence of God."* From 
this doctrine it follows necessarily that nothing can be 
which is not appointed by God ; good and evil are 
alike of his ordaining, the good to be wisely cultivated, 
and the evil to be made good by the wholesome use of 
its discipline. It is next shown that man's soul is im- 
mortal. This truth has been taught b}^ all philosophers, 
and is unconsciously believed by all nations. Further- 
more, man's nature is corrupt and in need of regenera- 
tion. God is the sovereign welfare of man, and there- 
fore the chief sheet-anchor of man ought to be to return 
to God. But this he cannot do without religion, and 
it behoves him earnestly to seek and to follow that 
form which is best and purest. In ancient times the 
best form plainly was that shown to Israel. Israel was 
superior to all other nations in having clear knowledge of 
the one God, and not being suffered to worship departed 
heroes, or, still worse, to bow down to devil-inspired 
blocks of wood or stone ; in possessing the Holy Scrip- 
tures ; and in the promise of a Saviour who should come. 
The book closes with arguments concerning the need of 

* The Trewnesse of the Christian Religion (ed. 1587), p. 67. 



410 A MEMOIR OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. [CuAr.xill. 

a Messiah, the Divine Word clothed in human flesh, and 
with proof that such an one was the Lord Jesus. "And 
therefore let us look up with sighs, and with sighs travel 
up towards the kingdom whose King is the Trinity, 
whose law is Charity, and whose measure is Eternity/''" 
That Sidney should have set his heart on translating 
such a work as this is characteristic. It was not a 
work likely to find much favour with either of the 
great sections into which the Church was already split. 
It satisfied the preconceived notions of neither Anglicans 
nor Puritans. It contained, we must admit, much that 
was faulty and defective. Yet it was the ablest work of 
one of the ablest Huguenots then living, and it embodied 
thoughts sanctioned by many of the greatest thinkers 
of the past. Mornay made those thoughts his own, 
and grouped them in his own way, but they were not 
invented by himself. The longing of wise schoolmen 
throughout the Christian ages had been to educe from 
the conflicting traditions of former times, and from 
the various opinions of the present, a systematic and 
harmonious view of Sacred Truth. In the ninth cen- 
tury, John Erigena had written his wonderful treatise 
De Divisio7ie Naturce, in which he summed up, far 
more tersely and pointedly than Mornay could do, 
nearly all that was most valuable in the modern work. 
In the thirteenth century, Bonaventura, in his Com- 
pendium TheologiccB Veritatis, and Aquinas, in parts of 
his Summa Theologice, had, less purely, and amid many 
other matters, made similar labour ; and Wyclif, in his 

* The Trewnesse of tJie Cliristian .Religion, p. 641. 



iS. ] A GRAND SCHEME OF THEOLOGY. 411 

Trialogus, had used very eloquent language. More 
nobly than in any of these works and in an altogether 
different way, the contemporary author of The Vision 
of Piers Ploivman, had sought, under poetical allegory, 
to present a generous scheme of the Divine plan con- 
cerning the human race. Of other teachers there were 
many, more or less memorable, who continued the same 
work, until Melancthon became the teacher of Hubert 
Languet, and Hubert Languet became the wise in- 
structor of both Mornay and Sidney. Of the thinkers 
of this large school it was the aim, more or less modified, 
to prove that truth was one and universal, that many 
falsehoods — chief of all, said some, the great lie of Eome 
— had been perpetrated, yet, that the truth still lay, 
and from the beginning had lain, in every human heart, 
that nothing was needed but one grand, broad system 
of Religion to gather up all worshippers, however 
differing, into one temple. There was one Divine 
Mind, they taught, filling the world ; of it every human 
mind was a particle, or an emanation, and the purpose 
of all this permitted struggle between good and evil on 
the earth was the development of a larger righteous- 
ness than was otherwise possible. In what way 
Sidney shared this thought is shown by scattered ex- 
pressions throughout his writings, but mainly by his 
earnest desire to procure a reproduction of his friend 
Du Plessis Mornay's work.''^ 



* The heresy-liunters of Sir Philip Sidney's day, and afterwards, 
found pleasure in accusing him of religious error, because he and Greville 
were accustomed to have theological and philosophical disputations with 
Giordano Bruno, an Italian long resident in London, Bruno, with 



412 A MEMOIR OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. [Chap. xill. 

It is curious to mark how very maturely, in his Hfe 
of less than two-and- thirty years, Sir Philip Sidney 
thought about everything. He followed authorship 
only as a pastime, his main ambition being to work 
actively as a soldier and a statesman, for the welfare 
of his own country, and for the overthrow of foreign 
tyrannies. Yet in almost every walk of literature he 
left the marks of his masterly tread. What would he 
not have done if he had lived even but a little longer ? 
if, with matured judgment, he had substituted the 
heroical romance of King Arthur for the heroic pas- 
toral of The Arcadia— if his trained muse had broken 
through the Itahan bondage of the day, and he had 
written verse as far superior to the better sort of his 
written poems, as these were to his more crude produc- 
tions ; if he had written other works as eloquent and as 
profound, as polished and as true, as The Defence of 
Poesie ; if he had fulfilled the promise of giving such 
deep, wise, earnest teaching of religion as was made in 
the begun translation of The Trewnesse of the Christian 
Religion ; if moreover, his genius, not content with any 
or all of these ways, had sought out some new roads 
through which to travel to glorious issues, and serve as 
illustrious examples for many to follow ? What, again, 
would have been the issue if his splendid patronage of 
letters had been prudently maintained and extended ? 
" Gentle Sir Philip Sidney ! " exclaimed Thomas Nash 

many eccentricities, was an honest, far-seeing man. He was accused, 
without proof given, of atheism. Perhaps his greatest real offence was 
the maintaining that only the Hebrews were descended from Adam, 
the other races being the offspring of earlier parents. 



Chap. XIII.] AN AUTHOR AND THE FRIEND OF AUTHORS. 418 

In his Pierce Penniless, " thou knewest what belonged 
to a scholar ; thou knewest what pains, what toils, 
what travail conduct to perfection. Well couldst thou 
give every virtue his encouragement, every wit his due, 
every writer his desert, 'cause none more virtuous, 
witty, or learned than thyself. But thou art dead in 
thy grave, and hast left too few successors of thy glory, 
too few to cherish the sons of the muses, or water with 
their plenty those budding hopes which thy bounty erst 
planted ! " 

Budding hopes without number Sidney's generous 
friendship quickened during his fair life. Not only 
did his large genius influence the minds of many who 
lived to perpetuate his thoughts ; his courtly eminence 
also enabled him to give material encouragement to 
very many. In both ways his most illustrious debtor 
was Edmund Spenser, who lived to lament, as he said, 
that " God. hath disdained the world of that most noble 
spirit which was the hope of all learned men and the 
patron of my young muses.'' '"^ Sidney received from 
Spenser more perhaps than he gave to him ; for in the 
world of letters Spenser was by far the greater man of 
the two. But without Sidney's help the author of The 
Faerie Queene would have trudged but lamely through 
the world. Allusion has already been made to the early 
intimacy between these men, and part of the beautiful de- 
dication of the ShepJieard's Kalendar "to him that was the 
president of nobleness and chivalry," has been quoted. 



* The dedication, to tlie Countess of Pembroke, of The Buins of 
Time, published in 1591. 



414 A MEMOIR OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. [Chap.xiii. 

Many of the thoughts contained in that poem found ex- 
pression in Sidney's hfe ; and he returned no more than 
just payment in procuring for his friend the appoint- 
ment of secretary to Lord Grey of Wilton, made Lord 
DeiDuty of Ireland in 1580. Had he lived long enough 
to attain the foremost rank in the Ehzabethan Court? 
of which every promise was being given just before 
his death, we may be quite sure that he would have 
provided for Spenser better subsistence than was pos- 
sible for him in exile at Kilcolman Castle ; and then 
the great poet would not have had, in his forty-sixth 
year, to flee for safety to England, having his new- 
born babe and all his goods and papers burnt by the 
rebel Irish, and presently dying broken-hearted and 
poverty-stricken with the The Faerie Queene only half- 
finished.'"' 

But there were many men of whom, much more than 
of Spenser, Sidney must be considered the patron ; and 
there were many others, with more boldness than genius, 
who perplexed him with their suit for patronage. Of 
neither class, however, is it my business, if, with our 
scanty knowledge, that were possible, to attempt a 
detailed enumeration. '' He was of a very munificent 
spirit," writes Aubrey, "and liberal to all lovers of 
learning, and to those that pretended to any acquaint- 
ance with Parnassus; insomuch that he was cloyed and 

* Even in death Sidney was Spenser's friend. Writing of Queen 
Elizabeth, in 1595, the latter said — 

" Yet fonnd I liking in her royal mind, 
Not for my skill but for that shepherd's sake." 

Colin Cloufs come Home Again, 11. 454, 455. 



i 



Chap.xiti] his LITERAEY INFLUENCE. 4] 5 

surfeited with the poetasters of those days." Of the 
many books dedicated to him two claim to be specially 
referred to, for their evidence of the esteem in which he 
was held by very diverse thinkers even before the 
period of his greatest fame. 

One was by a writer, formerly an Oxford student 
and possibly then known to Sidney, Stephen Gosson, 
now a Puritan preacher of moderate fame and the 
author of some creditable pastorals. But his skill 
in verse did not hinder him from writing, in 1579, 
The ScJioole of Abuse, fiercely directed "against poets, 
pipers, players, and their excusers." This book, as well 
as The Ephemerides of Phialo, which appeared in the 
same year, he dedicated, with singularly bad taste, to 
Mr. Philip Sidney, the acknowledged friend and excuser 
of poets, pijDers, and players ; and by him Spenser tells 
us that Gosson " was for his labour scorned ; if at least 
it lie in the goodness of that nature to scorn. Such 
folly is it,'^ he adds, " not to regard aforehand the 
nature and quality of him to whom we dedicate our 
books."- 

The other book to be noted was Nicholas Litchfield's 
translation, pubhshed in 1581, of a treatise De Re 
Militari by a Spanish author, Luis Gutierres de la 
Yega. Litchfield, also an Oxford man, issued the book 
under Sidney's patronage, on the plea that he could 
find no one more forward to further or favour mihtary 
knowledge than he was, he being, of all men, ever the 



* HasIewooJ, Ancient and Critical Essays, vol. ii. p. 288. 



416 A MEMOIR OP SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. [Chap.xiif. 

most ready and adventurous in every exercise of war 
and chivalry.* 

Poetry in literature, and warlike exercise in active 
life, were, in his later years, the favourite employments of 
Sidney. But he never lost interest in subjects which had 
chiefly deHghted him in the earher period devoted by 
him to zealous study. It was at his instigation, doubtless, 
that two men, whose names are now hardly known, though 
famous in their day, applied themselves to philosophy. 
The first of these was Lewis Bryskitt, who, as we saw, 
attended upon Sidney throughout the three years of his 
foreign travel. He came back to serve in Ireland under 
Lord Grey of Wilton, probably through the recom- 
mendation of his young master or of Sir Henry Sidney, 
to be the honoured friend of Spenser, who seems to 
have relieved the dullness of Irish life by teaching him 
Greek, and to write better prose than verse. f The 
fruit of his joint studies with Sidney appeared in a 
translation from the Italian of Giraldo, not published 
till 1606, though written fully twenty years earlier, and 
entitled A Discourse of Civill Life, containijig the Ethike 
Part of Morall Philosopliie. Having, as he said, 
greatly envied the happiness of the Italians who had 
in their mother-tongue writers who agreeably and in- 
telligently presented all that Plato or Aristotle had 
obscurely or confusedly written, he essayed to do the 
same for his own countrymen, and "to set down in 
English the precepts of those parts of moral philosophy 



* Wood, Athence Oxonienses, vol. i. col. 490 ; Zouch, p. 194. 
t Todd, Spenser, pp. xxvi. — xxviii. 



Chap. XIII] HIS LITERARY INFLUENCE. 417 

whereby our 3^outli might, without spending of so much 
time as the learning of those other languages require, 
speedily enter into the right course of virtuous life." 
As a loving follower of Sir Philip Sidney, as a zealous 
friend of Spenser, as a humble precursor of Lord Bacon, 
Bryskitt deserves to be not wholly forgotten. 

We have yet greater reason for remembering the 
name of Abraham Fraunce. He was a native of Shrop- 
shire, followed Sidney as a pupil at Shrew^sbury School, 
and was in due time sent by him to Cambridge, as a 
pensioner of Saint John's College.* When he came to 
London as student at Gray's lun, he appears to have 
had admission to the Areopagus of which we have 
already seen something, and to have heartily adopted 
its rules for the use of classical measures. When 
Sidney died, Sidney's sister took him under her patron- 
age, and therefore his pastoral history of Phillis and 
Amintas, told in hexameters, was published in 1591, as 
TJie Countess of Pembroke's Yvychurch. But before 
this, still expanding thoughts w^hich he had borrowed 
from Sidney, he had written The Lawiers Logike. The 
book is curious as being almost the first attempt to 
separate logic from its general scholastic seclusion, and 
give it dignified employment in the actual business of 
life. Here, he said, "after application of logic to law 
and an examination of law by logic, I made plain the 
precepts of the one by the practice of the other, and 
called my book The Lawiers Logike, not as though logic 
were tied only unto law, but for that our law , is most 

' * Cooper, Athence Cantdbrigienses, vol. ii. p. I ] 9, 



418 A MEMOIR OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. [Chap.xiii. 

fit to express the precepts of logic/' Still more import- 
ant was a later work by Fraunce. This was a repetition 
of his logic, with the examples taken, for greater clear- 
ness and the entertainment of novices, from Spenser's 
Shepheards Calendar. Following the same clever fancy 
he used parts of the Faerie Queene in elucidation of 
his Arcadian Rhetoric. Fraunce's will was often 
superior to his skill, but in all that he wrote he 
showed the large influence for good exerted upon him 
by his early patron. Sir Philip Sidney, and his later 
patroness, the Countess of Pembroke. 

But this chapter would have no end, were I to say 
all that coiJd be said about Sidney's influence upon the 
thinkers and writers, great and little, of his generation 
and the generations following. I should have to trace 
the early history of the London Society of Antiquaries, 
said to have begun in his friendly meetings with 
Camden and other students of the past. I should have 
to sum up pastorals, and repeat sonnets, and quote 
pieces 'of criticism, innumerable. I should have to 
unfold some of the richest treasures of even the greatest 
writers — of Shakespeare and Bacon and Milton — in 
p:?9^f of their large debts to this splendid thinker. 

And all this of a man who died at the age of thirty- 
one, wdio had only lived to make a fair sjtart in the 
world, when the end came suddenly. Spenser's life 
was short ; but Spenser, born a year before Sidney, 
outlived him by thirteen years, and, in those thirteen 
3^ears, wrote most of the works upon which his great 
fame rests. Shakespeare died in the very prime of 
manhood, but Shakespeare lived twenty years longer 



CriAP.xiii.] IK THE WORLD OF LETTEES. 419 

than Sidney, and, if his life had been as brief, Hamlet 
and Othello, Macbeth and King Lear, would never have 
been written. Neither Francis Bacon nor Ben Jonson 
could be called old men when they ended life ; but 
Jonson's years reached only one of being twice as 
many as Sidney's, and Bacon's were one more than 
twice as many. Had a few years more been added to 
the life of Thomas Hobbes, it would have been thrice as 
long as Sidney's. Among men of real genius in the 
Elizabethan age, the life of Christopher Marlowe — 
spent, not in noble work for civilization and Christianity, 
but in riot and debauchery, and ended, not upon the 
battle-field, but in a pot-house brawl — was alone shorter 
than Sidney's ; but Sidney's power, not confined to the 
mere wealth of fancy, was far greater than Marlowe's. 
The one man, who deserved honour for nothing else, 
penned four dramas, bright with sublime flashes of 
untrained genius. The other, to w^hose estimation 
among men his writings, clever as they are, add 
little, idling with pastoral romance and love-sonnets, 
wrote both in a manner hardly to be rivalled ; and 
tempted to venture on the untried ground of learned 
criticism, produced a work which must ever be 
regarded as a model of pure language and of subtle 
thought. 

In the world of letters, then, Sir Philip Sidney took, 
for his years, rank singularly high. But we must 
never forget that literature was only his amusement. 
He knew that he had statesmanly and martial powers, 
which he was eager to be using. He longed, with the 
wild earnestness of a caged bird, for room to take 



420 A MEMOIR OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. [CnAP.xiii. 

his part in the great battle of freedom which was going 
on around him. For such work he was best fitted, 
and it is for the glorious beginning made bj him herein 
that we owe him largest honour. But, knowing this, we 
can only the more marvel that the songs with which he 
lightened his captivity were so eloquent, and that the 
truths which his youth enforced in idle moments came 
out of the depths of so mature a mind. 



CHAPTER XIV. 



THE WORLD OF POLITICS. 

1584—1585. 



" Her Majesty," wrote Sir Philip Sidney on Sunday, 
the 21st of July, 1584, in a letter to his friend Sir 
Edward Stafford, at that time Ambassador at Paris, 
" seems affected to deal in the Low Country matters, 
but I think nothing will come of it. We are half per- 
suaded to enter into the journey of Sir Humphrey 
Gilbert very eagerl}^, whereunto 3^our Mr. Hakluyt hath 
served for a very good trumpeter." " These two sen- 
tences sum up Sidney's main political thoughts for a 
period long before and for some time after this present 
writing of them. For twelve years past, from the date 
of his visit to France, Germany, and Italy, when he had 
made quick youthful observations of the troublous state 
of Europe, the grand wish of his life had been to 
witness and to join in procuring the overthrow of 
Spanish power. He saw the mischief Spain was doing 
everywhere, but most of all in the Netherlands. He 
listened with no careless ears to accounts of the cruel- 
ties done by the Duke of Alva, and of such tragical 
deaths as those of Counts Egmont and Hoorne. Even 

* Sidney Papers, vol. i., p. 298, 



422 A MEMOIR OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. [Chap. Xiv. 

then he yearned to join in the strife and to do his best 
towards ending it. When, in 1577, he went as Ambas- 
sador to the Emjoeror of Germany and to the Elector 
Palatine, we found him very eloquently urging the form- 
ation of a great Protestant league against Spain and 
Rome, so as to protect not only the oppressed Nether- 
lands but all the other States then in danger. 
Therein he was quite discouraged ; and for nearly 
ten years more we hear nothing of the projected 
league. Sick at heart, he came home, and spent much 
time in the arrangement of family matters, and in idle 
waiting upon Queen Ehzabeth. Not satisfied with the 
gay life of the Court, he showed some shght inclina- 
tion to go voyaging with Captain Frobisher, and very 
strong desires to cross over into the Low Countries 
Slid serve as a volunteer under his friend Duke Casimir, 
or his worthier friend Prince William of Orange. But 
from each undertaking he was hindered either by Hubert 
Languet's arguments, or by his own convictions of the 
uselessness of the attempt, or by his father's interces- 
sions and the needs of his troubled family. He there- 
fore stayed in England and worked as nobly as he 
could, amid many disadvantages and through grievous 
temptations, in his own home, at Court, and, when oc- 
casion arose, in Parliament. After Languet's death in 
1581 and his own forced visit to Flanders in the spring 
of 1582, he corresponded with Du Plessis Mornay, and 
others, respecting the progress of affairs. He lost none 
of his interest in foreign politics ; but he seems to have 
abandoned all thought of going as a soldier to the 
Netherlands, where now that Duke of Anjou whom he 



^^^\] POLITICAL THOUGHTS. 423 



^t. 29. 



hated and despised was blinding most men's visions and 
dazzling even the clear eyesight of the Prince of 
Orange. Therefore he gave the greater heed to the 
schemes of which, as he said, Sir Humphrey Gilbert was 
the captain and Mr. Richard Hakluyt the trumpeter. 
Though led by personal and family reasons to abandon 
his charter for the colonization of a part of America, and 
to spend a- year or so, as we are to infer, in quiet home 
enjoyments and in genial hterary avocations, his interest 
was not lessened. He must have mourned over Gilbert's 
heroic melancholy death, and longed for an oppor- 
tunity of prosecuting his favourite plans, before his 
attention was specially directed to the Low Countries 
by some incidents occurring in the summer of 1584. 
The first of these was the death of his old opponent 
the Duke of Anjou. 

Sidney had last seen Anjou at Antwerp, in March of 
1582. Thither, as we noticed, he and his uncle of 
Leicester and many other courtiers, had been sent to do 
honour to Queen Elizabeth's intended husband. Various 
circumstances, however, led to a postponement of the 
marriage arrangements. The Duke himself, knowing 
how strong was the English feeling against him, per- 
haps began to think his case hopeless. Instead of 
paying his intended visit to Queen Elizabeth, he 
remained in the Netherlands, where there seemed 
no limit to the honour shown to him. On the 18th 
of May, 1582, his twenty-eighth birthday, there was 
an especially grand festival, attended by the Prince 
of Orange and every other man of mark then in Ant- 
werp. It was also attended by some assassins, and, in 



421 A MEMOIR OP SIR PriTLIP SIDNEY. [Chap. xiv. 

the midst of the feasting, Prince WiUiam was shot with 
such effect that all thought him dead. The consterna- 
tion may be imagined. Suddenly the rumour spread, 
that the Duke of Anjou, just made Duke of Brabant, 
was instigator of the murder. Was he not — people 
everywhere whispered — brother to that execrable 
Charles, and darling son of that still more execrable 
Queen Mother, Catherine, at whose instigation, ten 
years before, the Massacre of Saint Bartholomew had 
been wrought ? Was not this foul act the signal for 
another slaughter of the Protestants, just as then the 
cruel attempt upon Coligni's life had preceded the 
horrible deeds that ensued 1 There is little doubt that 
the suspicion was unfounded. However, the Prince's 
wound was not so disastrous as at first men feared. 
Yet it was far too fatal ; for the alarm of it and its sup- 
posed ending, killed the good and high-minded Princess 
of Orange, whose acquaintance Sidney had made in 
the spring of 1577. But William himself recovered, 
and in due time the real would-be murderer was 
found and punished. Thus the suspicions about Anjou 
were stifled ; but that they should ever have arisen 
shows the distrust latent under all the pompous pro- 
fessions of goodwill. Presently the shows and festivals 
were resumed, and they lasted to the end of the year, 
though interrupted by another attempt at assassination, 
this time directed against both Anjou and Orange. 

It was arranged that the Prince and the Duke should 
exercise a sort of joint government over the States. 
But before long Anjou was persuaded to be jealous of his 
partner. Then it was that he matured a very weak plan. 



^f^29. ] THE DUKE OP AI^JOU. 425 

which, though not an imitation of the Saint Bartholomew 
scheme, had just enough similarity to couple the two in 
men's minds. He resolved to take possession of all the 
ports and fortifications, and then to announce himself 
the supreme ruler of the Low Countries. The 15th of 
January, 1583, was the day appointed for the mad 
undertaking, but it was postponed, and a report of the 
project being suffered to get abroad, the people were 
forewarned, and enabled to put themselves in a state of 
defence. The only issue was a loss of all the false credit 
which the Duke had hitherto succeeded in maintainino;. 

So much of Anjou's story it has seemed needful for 
me to recount in proof of Sidney's right judgment as to 
his thorough worthlessness and viciousness. But he need 
not be followed into the year or more of ignominy and 
obscurity which attended upon his self-occasioned dis- 
grace. Strange to say. Queen Elizabeth still showed 
affection for him. But the long talked-of marriage was 
now out of the question. He paid no fresh visit to 
England, and did nothing else worth remembering. 
At last, on the 1st of June, 1584, in the thirty-first 
year of his age, he died at Chateau Thierry, with so 
much sweating of blood and such internal torture that 
poison was suspected. 

The news had not long reached England when the 
Queen resolved to send a special message of sympathy 
to King Henry the Third, and, rather curiously, she chose 
for her messenger Sir Philip Sidney, the man who, of all 
her courtiers, had been most conspicuous and plain-spoken 
in his aversion to the Duke while he lived. JSTot much 
to his liking could have been the instructions dehvered 



426 A MEMOIR OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. (Chap. XIV. 

to him about the middle of July, telling, as they did, of 
Elizabeth's extreme grief at the loss of so rare and 
noble a friend, and of her unfeigned love and esteem for 
the despicable Queen-Mother. Following those com- 
pliments were some words of very different import, 
added, it may be, at Sidney's own request, just as, 
seven years before, when he was sent with similar 
messages of condolence to Germany, he procured the 
addition of a sanction for discussing other and more 
important matters. In the present case he was to see 
whether King Henry was disposed to do anything for 
the relief of " those poor afflicted people of the Low 
Countries." He was to show how, without some pre- 
sent assistance, they would not be able to hold out 
much longer, an issue which, whatever care was taken 
for the States themselves, ought to be anxiously pre- 
vented by all princes who heeded their own welfare. 
Indeed, the world had wondered why King Henry, 
considering the place and range which he held in 
Christendom, should so long have overslipped" the 
means proper to the restraining of Spanish greatness. 
Was not that greatness increasing every day ? King 
Philip lacked only the quiet possession of the Low 
Countries to make him the most absolute monarch that 
had ever been in this part of the world, and the effects 
thereof would shortly most dangerously appear, if the 
same were not better stayed and provided for through 
God's goodness than they were likely to be through the 
foresight of those princes who were chiefly concerned. 
The King of France, especially, if things were care- 
lessly suffered much longer to continue as they had 



Mu%.] AN INTENDED EMBASSAGE. 427 

been and now were, would presently find himself forced 
into a position carrying no small blemish to his honour 
and very great peril to his estate.* 

But, as it happened, neither the words of condo- 
lence, nor the discordant, though very wholesome, 
words of warning were to be uttered by Sir Philip 
Sidney. He had, at great trouble and expense, made 
all the preparations needful for the creditable present- 
ment of himself before the French Court, he had even 
gone some way on his journey, when information came 
that King Henry the Third was gone to Lyons and could 
not receive the message unless it were kept till his return 
to Paris in a couple of months' time.f Therefore the 
message was not, as it would appear, delivered at all. 
Perhaps this was just as well. The formalities of con- 
dolence were quite uncalled-for, and no good could 
have come from the most eloquent language which it 
would have been possible to offer to the French King 
respecting the Netherlands. 

By the hindrance of his projected embassage, Sidney's 
attention to continental matters was not at all lessened. 
The whole state of Europe, but especially events in the 
Netherlands, interested him. Exactly a month after 
the death of Anjou, Wilham, Prince of Orange, in the 
very prime of his manhood, in the full vigour of his 
large mind, and just at the time when there seemed 
most need that he should Hve and guide the States 
with his masterly hand, as he had already guided them 

* Cotton. MSS., Galba, E vi. fols. 241, 242. 

t State Paper Office MSS., Scottish Correspondence^ Elizabethf vol. 
XXXV. No. 61. 



428 A MEMOTK OF SIR PHILir SIDNEY. [Cnxp. XIV. 

through so many years of heavy peril, had been mur- 
dered. Hardly could a greater trouble have fallen upon 
Europe. William had not only been the centre of unity 
to the United Provinces, he had not only forced respect 
to himself and his great cause from the rival Protestant 
princes of Germany ; by his chivalrous deportment he 
had even enlisted much Catholic sympathy on his 
side, and King Philip of Spain regarded him as his 
most terrible opponent. Where could be found 
another man as great, or in any degree as fit to set in 
order all the complicated, often conflicting, elements of 
strength, and direct them against the one great enemy 
of all true progress in Europe as it was then troubled ? 
What was there now that Spanish and Romish treachery, 
working zealously as one power, would not be able to 
accomplish '? What further resistance, of any lasting 
value, could now be offered to the persistent encroach- 
ments of that policy which aimed at nothing less than 
the overthrow of all liberty in the exercise of religious 
thought, or in the pursuit of political freedom '? 

These were the gloomy prospects that presented them- 
selves to all EngHshmen, but to none more forcibly than 
to Sir PhiHp Sidney and his father-in-law. Sir Francis 
Walsingham. The gloom was not lessened because a few 
fitful flames, giving hope to some ardent souls, rose up 
from amidst the confusion. Not many days after the 
ugly deed, which the true instincts of all men attributed 
to Spanish agency, Walsingham himself wrote to 
say that thus far the people of the Netherlands had 
shown •themselves but little amazed by the occurrence. 
" Rather the wickedness of the deed hath hardened 



1584 



9. ] TROUBLES m THE NETHERLANDS. 429 



their stomachs to hold out as long as they shall have 
any means of defence."* And Sidney's friend, Wilham 
Herle, in a letter of rather later date, had said, " It has 
created no astonishment at all, either of the people or 
magistrates, by fear or division, but rather generally 
animated them with a great resolution of courage and 
hatred engraved in them, to revenge the foulness of the 
act committed on the person of the Prince by the tyrant 
of Spain."t But now that the head was gone, there 
was no sufficient strength left in the members. " The 
ducats of Spain, Madam,'' wrote the envoy of Catherine 
de' Medici to his mistress, " are trotting about in such 
fashion that they have vanquished the courage of multi- 
tudes."J On the l7th of August, Dendermonde gave 
in ; on the 1 7th of September Ghent surrendered ; 
and other towns of more or less importance followed 
in their submission to the vigorous attacks, both of 
gold and of steel, made by Alexander Farnese, Duke of 
Parma. 

This Duke of Parma was undoubtedly the ablest 
regent yet sent from Spain into the Low Countries. 
Born in 1546, he was but a few months younger than 
his uncle, Don John of Austria, whose career it was in 
great measure his ambition to surpass. A wild love 
of fighting had led him, in his youth, to disguise 
himself, go out into the streets by night, and then 
challenge every armed stranger whom he met. 
Incredible stories were told of the great things he 

* MSS. in State Paper Office ; cited by Motley, United Nether- 
lands, vol i. p. 13. 

t Ibid. X Ibid, vol i. p. 19. 



430 A MEMOIR OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. [C.iap xiv. 

had done at tlie battle of Lepanto, in 1571. In 
December, 1577, lie had been sent into Flanders with 
reinforcements for Don John, and upon the latter's 
death in the following spring, he had been appointed 
his successor. For now more than six years he had been 
acting with a measure of honesty in a dishonest cause, 
and, as far as was possible, he had done his bad work 
well. But for that reason the English party, of which 
Walsingham was head and Sidney a leading member, 
looked upon him with all the more aversion. These 
last successes which he had gained seemed to threaten 
disaster and ruin. If he continued to make progress 
in subjecting the Netherlands, what limit could there 
be to the mischief ? 

Sidney had excuse for the gloomy discontented 
thoughts which perplexed him at this time. Looking first 
at France, of all nations save Flanders the nearest and 
most closely alHed to England, he found that King Henry, 
if he was a good master to his courtiers and favourites, 
was certainly not a great king. He was wholly busied 
in his pleasures, his crown domains were exhausted, 
and by his multipHcation of imposts he was rapidly 
weakening the affections of his subjects. His people 
w^ere frivolous, his nobles prone to revolution, and conse- 
quently his country was ready, even now, through scorn 
of his effeminate vices, either to become a prey to the 
one assailant who might be strongest, or to be broken in 
pieces among many.* That judgment, very soon con- 
firmed by actual occurrences, was not Sidney's alone. 

* Fiilke Greville, pp. 94, 95. 



1584-1585. 
^t. 29-30. 



] THE STATE OP EUEOPE. 43] 



His friend Sir Edward Stafford, writing from Paris to 
Walsingliam, described Henry as " a king who seeketh 
nothing but to impoverish his poor people and to 
enrich a couple ; that careth not what cometh after 
his death so that he may rove on whilst he liveth, 
and that careth neither for doing his own state 
good nor his neighbour's state harm/' This very 
negative hope was all that Stafford, a wise honest 
observer of the times, could have. " In my opinion ;" he 
added, " seeing we cannot be so happy as to have a 
king to concur with us to do any good, yet are we 
happy to have one that his humour serveth him not to 
concur with others to do us harm, and I beseech you, 
Sir, seeing that no way can be found as yet to make 
him look into his estate to do the one, let us keep him 
in the humour from barkening to the other, and for 
which I can devise no better way than in humouring 
him and feeding him with vanities and shows of 
delight, which he careth more for than for matters that 
touch him nearer.""^ To feed his vanity the badge of 
the Order of the Garter was about to be conferred upon 
the King, but clearly from him could be expected none 
of that help which Sidney longed to see afforded 
to the Netherlands. 

In Germany things had no more hopeful aspect. 
Eesting, as in a dream, upon the notion that they could 
never be deprived of their venerable freedom and in- 
dependence, the people had, as it were, thrown the 
bridle upon the neck of the Emperor, and it was easy 

* Burghley Papers (ed. Mmxlin), p. 416. 



432 A MEMOIR OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. 



[CiiAi-. XIV. 



to sec whither he was carrying them. The royal branch 
of Austria, from dependence upon the King of Spain, 
had fallen into servitude, and now nearly all of the best 
quality of the nation had been so won over to his service, 
that his credit was become as great as even that of 
Charles the Emperor had been in the height of his 
power. And then, to confirm and multiply chances of 
danger — we are told — Sidney discovered how that 
creeping monarchy of Eome, by her arch-instruments the 
Jesuits, had already planted schools in all the chief of 
the reformed cities, "intending thus to corrupt this well- 
beheving people with that old forbidden tree of know- 
ledge,'^ urging them, as far as was possible, to sin 
desperately against the plain law of Christian duty. 
Upon them these raisers of deadly mist had so worked, 
that there was no strength left for healthy action. 
In this way were both Spain and Rome seeking to ruin 
Germany. What would not be the issue of their " crafty 
conquering ends ^' ? 

But worse than all was the danger engendered 
among the German princes themselves, who, between 
the fatal strife of Lutherans and Calvinists which 
was among them, amid selfish hopes, and fears, and 
jealousies, and temptations, and all other unnatural seeds 
of division, were bringing themselves into such condition 
that they could not but become an easy prey to the 
watchful, insatiable, and much-promising ambition of 
the Spaniard. Instead of being able to help the 
Netherlands, their own freedom, if not voluntarily 
given up, would soon be taken from them, just as 
Flanders was now being enslaved 



m!^-3o.] THE STATE OF EUROPE. 433 

Nearly all the potentates of Europe seemed now to 
depend upon King Philip the Second. The Pope and 
the Cardinals were of course altogether his servants. 
All the other masters of Italy, even those with most 
spirit and judgment, had been bought up and made 
his pensioners. His recent acquisition of Portugal was 
the latest instance of his great and evil power.* 

In that hopeless condition, Sidney said to himself 
and to others, were the politics of Europe. Every- 
where the real enemy, whether open or concealed, was 
Spain. Everywhere the same Philip was at worL 
disorganizing nations, upsetting governments, under- 
mining religious behefs, scheming the overthrow of 
every power save his own. Not even England, the 
country which he most hated and most envied, was a| 
all safe. " Besides a universal terror upon all princes,'* 
wrote Fulke Greville* of his friend, " this wakeful 
patriot saw that this immense power of Spain did cast 
a more particular aspect of danger upon his native 
country, and such as was not likely to be prevented 
or resisted by any other antidote than a general league 
among ii'ee princes, to undertake this undertaker at 
home.'' t 

In that sentence we have a key to many of Sidney's 
thoughts during the autumn of 1584 and much of 
the ensuing year. The idea of a general Protestant 
league, — which, had it been, might have made powerless 
the Catholic bond now being organized by the Duke ot 

* Fulke Greville, pp. 94—101. Cotton. MSS., Galba, E vi. Ms. 
242, 243. 

t Fulke Greville, p. 102. 



434 A MEMOIR OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. ichap.xiv. 

Guise and King Philip, and at a later time to occasion 
very serious mischief, — had been a favourite with him 
when he went to Germany in 1577, and towards its 
formation he still struggled. But on one important 
point his opinion had altered. With no loss of sym- 
pathy for the Low Country cause, he had ceased to 
regard the Netherlands as the fittest battle-ground for 
fighting out the great strife between freedom and 
despotism. As long, he said, as Spain had peace 
at home, authority from the Pope, and credit with 
other nations, as long as the world had men wdlhng 
to fight, and money with which to keep them, the war 
in the Netherlands could never be ended. That was 
the best fortified part of all the Spanish dominions. 
It would be hard for the English ever to become mas- 
ters in the field of Flanders. To attempt it was but a 
resting upon " that ever betraying fallacy of under- 
valuing our enemies, or of settling undertaking-ques- 
tions upon market-men's intelligence ; which confident 
ways, without any curious examination as to what 
power the adverse party hath prepared to encounter, 
by defence, invasion, or division, must probabjy make 
us losers both in men, money, and reputation. There 
were but two wa3^s left to frustate this ambitious 
monarch's dangers ; the one, that which diverted Han- 
nibal, and, by setting fire to his own house, made him 
draw in his spirits to comfort his heart ; the other, that 
of Jason, by fetching away his golden fleece, and not 
suffering any man quietly to enjoy that which every 
man so much affected." * 

* Fulke GreviUe, pp, 102—104. 



1584-1585. 
^t. 29-30. 



] PHILIP AGAINST PHILIP. 435 



Sidney's plan was certainly a bold one. To carry 
war into the bowels of Spain, he urged, was the safest, 
quickest, and most dignified proceeding. He suggested 
several ways in which it might be done. In the first 
place, there was Don Antonio, the claimant for the 
kingdom of Portugal against the Spanish usurpation. 
With a little encouragement from England, could not 
the national spirit of the Portuguese be aroused, and 
would not their insurrection strike a great blow at the 
hated power ? Whether Antonio were aided or not, 
could not means be found by which the overweening 
pride of Spain, so long the scourge of others, would be 
brought to scourge itself ? Sidney pointed to Seville. 
There, he showed, was to be found a fair city, built in a 
very fertile region, and of rare mercantile wealth, but 
inhabited by an effeminate race of people ; would it 
not be very i^asy to capture it 1 were there not many 
ambitious generals, needy soldiers, and greedy mariners 
who, with nothino; but the Endish authoritv to back 
them, would do the work by themselves ? Or there 
was Cadiz, the key to Philip's best and richest trajfic ; 
could it not be wisely and easily conquered by some 
party of adventurers, and thus a thorn be lodged in 
the enemy's side '? Surely some such diverting enter- 
prise was feasible. If it seemed audacious, would not 
the very audacity of the undertaking arouse others, 
and suddenly stir up many spirits to move against the 
one power by which they all had long been slavishly 
entrapped I "^^ 



*.Fulke GreviUe, pp. 106—108. 

p p 2 



436 A MEMOIR OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. [Chap. xiv. 

But if any undertaking of that kind were thought 
too full of charge, hazard, and difficulty, said Sir 
Philip, let us, at any rate, keep firm hold of the seas. 
He besought the Queen wisely to consider how, as if 
specially for the maintenance of England's great birth- 
right, nature had made all naval wars far more cheap, 
proper, and commodious to her than any expedition 
upon land could possibly be. England had good claim 
to be regarded as mistress of the sea, and by steadily 
asserting this claim, her Majesty would most surely be 
procuring honour to herself, advantage to her com- 
merce, and reputation to her people. Ought she 
not especially, just now, while cloudy humours and 
vague questions were everywhere prevailing between 
herself and other princes, to keep a strong and perma- 
nent fleet ready for any emergency'? Such a fleet 
would enable her to exercise a regal inquisition, as it 
were, one worthy of a sea-sovereign, one whereby the 
interests of her own subjects and of her allies might be 
looked after " without wronging friends or neighbours," 
and Her Majesty be enabled to direct "a clear perspective 
glass unto her enemies^ mercantile and martial traffic, 
enabhng her so to balance this ambitious leviathan of 
Spain, that the little fishes around might travel, mul- 
tiply, and live quietly by him.'' '"' 

. And not only that : Sidney urged that England should 
offer open protection to Rochelle, Brest, Bordeaux, 
and all other places on the Continent which were dis- 
tressed on account of their religion — not with the 
intent of reconquering any part of those ancient do- 

* Fulke GreviUe, pp. lOS, 109. 



i584-i5S|^j PHILIP AGAINST PHILIP. 437 



^t. 29- 



minions to which the English sovereign had vener- 
able title — but solely, " to keep those humble religious 
souls free from oppression in that super-jesuitical sove- 
reignty.'^ In thus coming forward as the protectress 
of all afflicted states, would not Her Majesty be, at the 
same time, adding much to the honourable fame and 
power of England, and stirring up many timorous 
persons and cities to an open avowal of the Protestant 
faith which they, now held in secret 1 Would not 
even the greatest and freest cities be encouraged to go 
on and to enter more heartily into the battle against 
Spain 1 Nay, would not even the better sort of 
Catholic princes, now, for want of outlet to these 
powers, servilely breaking their hopes and running 
out upon the ground like water, turn round and choose 
to shake off the costly and hateful yoke of mountebank 
holiness, put upon them by Spanish Kome, and pre- 
sently mingle their counsels and forces with ours '? '"' 
" This way of a balancing union among princes would 
prove a quieter rest for them, and sounder foundations 
for us than our former parties did when we conquered 
France, more by factious and ambitious assistance, 
than by any odds of our bows, or beef-eaters, as the 
French were then scornfully pleased to term us, when, 
in the pride of our conquests we strove to gripe more 
than was possible for us to hold, as appears by our 
being forced to come away, and leave our ancestors' 
blood and bones behind for monuments, not of enjoying, 
but of over-griping and of expulsion.'^ f 

* Fulke Gre^^nie, pp. 110—112. t Ibid., p. 109* 



438 A MEMOIR OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. [Chap.xiv. 

After tliat fashion Sir Philip Sidney, in his private 
thinking, and in the free utterance of his thoughts 
before Queen and Court, made a survey of the condition 
and the needs of Europe in his day ; the main result 
of all his argument being to prove the possibility and 
expedience of a perfect reconcihation and alhance be- 
tween England and the Protestant powers and France — 
if the better nature of its people might be brought into 
proper action — and an utterly irreconcileable division 
between them and Spain. If the Queen, he urged, for 
a main pledge of this new offensive and defensive 
league, would take up her rightful position as Defendress 
of the Faith, and as the foremost champion of all true 
noble thought, there would be some prevention of this 
boundless power, there would be " a safe unvizarding 
of this masked triplicity between Spain, Rome, and the 
Jesuitical faction of France.'^ '"" 

But though Sidney bravely and eloquently urged the 
seeking of this end, and though it thoroughly consorted 
with the principles of his high-minded father-in-law, 
the Secretary of State, he was not at all hopeful about 
it. In the policy of Queen Elizabeth and Lord 
Burghley, now much to be blamed for his pliant fol- 
lowing of her Majesty's whims, as well as for his 
own crooked, though would-be patriotic, deahngs, there 
was no ground* for hope to any right-minded thinker. 
"Sorry I am,'' wrote Walsingham, in a very memo- 
rable letter to Davison, then ambassador to the JN"ether- 
lands, " to see the course that is taken in this weighty 

* Fulke Greville, pp. 113, 114. 



m*29-30.] PHILIP AGAINST PHILIP. 439 

cause, for we will neither lielp those poor countries 
ourselves, nor yet suffer others to do it/' Then he 
went on to speak of the underhand conduct of those in 
higher authority than he was, and of the great dis- 
credit which must ensue, not only to the States, but 
also to her Majesty, " as never a wise man that seeth it 
and loveth her, but lamenteth it from the bottom of his 
heart."'-' 

Sidney lived to see that his favourite project of an 
European league was impracticable, that it would re- 
quire greater resolution, union, and expense than the 
natural diffidence and apathy of the Queen could well 
endure. Seeing, we are told, how the freedom of 
action was taken away, or at the least obstructed by 
the fatal evils of ignorance, or the fallacious counsels of 
ministers, he concluded that the only creditable means 
left was to trust to his own hand, and to assail the 
King of Spain as an independent enemy, f He was 
^ow, however, in coming to this conclusion. The 
political thoughts which I have been presenting as 
nearly as possible in his own words, or in the words of 
Fulke Greville, his kinsman, friend, and fellow- thinker 
on these matters, may be considered as having been 
firmly lodged in his mind throughout the winter of 
1584 and 1585. But they were not his only thoughts. 
Many other subjects at this time claimed his interest. 

Some came to him in his capacity of Member of 
Parliament. The former Parhament, in which we found 



* Motley, United Netherlands^ vol. i, p. 90. 
t Fulke Greville, pp. 123, 124. 



440 A ]VrEMOIR OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. [Cnxr.xiv 

him sitting during the early months of 1581, had never 
given much satisfation to the Queen, and therefore, 
after many prorogations, it was dissolved and a new one 
summoned. Sir Philip Sidney was again elected, pro- 
bably as a knight for his native county of Kent. 

The House was opened by her Majesty on Monday, 
the 23rd of November,"' and on the 27th it began 
work, which, throughout the session, was heavy, rather 
than important. Sidney's name is first mentioned 
under the date of Tuesday, the 8th of December, when 
he was placed on a Committee to consider a very in- 
significant Bill for the preservation of timber in the 
County of Sussex. f More interesting work fell to him 
on the 14th of the month, a Bill for the confirmation 
of letters patent issued to Walter Ealeigh, Esquire, for 
the discovery and occupation of new lands, being then 
committed to him, to Sir Francis Drake, and to some 
others. I Three days later the Bill was returned to the 
House without the alteration of a single word,§ and on 
the 18 th, after many arguments had been offered, a^d a 
proviso added, it was read for the third time. || Unfor- 
tunately, we have no record of these discussions, and 
cannot, therefore, tell the precise part taken by Sidney 
in the handling of a subject always attractive to him, 
but at this time of especial interest. 

Ealeigh, born some time before Sidney, was now in 
his thirty-fourth year. His mother having been twice 



* D'Ewes, p. 332. f Ibid., p. 337. 

J Ibid,, p. 339. § Ibid., p. 340. 

JJ Ibid., p. 341. 



it.^^30.] PAELTAMENTAEY WOEK. 441 

married, he was half-brother to Sir Humphrey Gilbert, 
and his junior by about thirteen years. He had quitted 
Oxford in the year of Sidney's entry, and, going to the 
Continent, had enrolled himself as a volunteer in the 
Huguenot army, commanded at first by the Prince of 
Conde, and afterwards by Coligni. Returning to 
England in 1576, he had soon been despatched to 
Holland with the embassage of Sir John JSTorris. In 
1578 he came home, and took part in Gilbert's expedi- 
tion to Newfoundland, and two years later, in company 
with the poet Spenser, he had gone to Ireland in the 
service of Lord Grey of Wilton. By that time he 
must have formed the acquaintance of Sidney. Soon 
afterwards, coming back from Ireland, he had suddenly 
risen to high place as a courtier. As one evidence of 
the royal esteem, he had obtained, in March of this year, 
1584, at least nine months later than Sidney's similar 
grant, permission to explore and colonize a portion of 
America. But he was richer than Sidney, and therefore 
his charter was hardly a month old before two vessels were 
sent out to investigate the coast, and in his name to take 
possession of the prescribed district. It was upon the 
report of this expedition that the Bill to which I have 
referred, was brought before Parliament. 

On the 21st of December, the House was adjourned 
for the Christmas hohdays, and it did not meet again 
until the 4th of February. On the 5th a Bill concerning 
the maintenance of Rochester Bridge was referred to a 
Committee, of which Sidney was a member, ^^ and on the 

^ * D'Ewes, p. 346. 



442 A MEMOIR OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. [Chap. xiv. 

18th of the next mouth he was similarly employed in 
discussing two other small matters, the one concerning 
the preservation of woods in Kent, the .other relating 
to the privileges of curriers.*''* But in the six weeks 
which were between these minor employments, he had 
to take part in the two principal subjects of the 
session. 

On the 18th of February he was appointed, in 
company with Fulke Greville, and several others, to 
confer with the Lords respecting a bill about Jesuits. f 
The Upper House was far from sympathizing with 
the Puritan temper of the Commons. This Puritan 
temper, however, prevailed so far as to make it law that 
all Jesuits and Popish priests must quit the kingdom 
within forty days ; all who stayed longer than that 
period, or who afterwards came back, being held guilty 
of treason ; all who harboured or relieved them being 
accounted felons ; and all now studying in foreign 
seminaries, and failing to return within six months, and 
at once to make humble submission, being adjudged 
traitors.;]: These measures were certainly bigoted and 
stringent enough ; yet some excuse for them may be 
found in the many treacherous schemes now working in 
the minds of extreme Catholics, and showing themselves 
in conspiracies like that led by Babington. 

Such strong law-making was quite to the Queen^s 
taste : but she was displeased with the Commons, be- 
cause they petitioned the other House to us6 influence 



* D'Ewes, p. 370. + Ibid., p. 352. 

J 27 Eliz. cap. i. ^ 



iflo.] THE QUEEN- AITD THE CHURCH. 443 

for restraining the persecuting spirit lately shown by 
Archbishop Whitgift. Whitgift's predecessor, Grindal, 
by his kind dealing towards nonconformists, had won 
the esteem not only of all Puritans, but also of such 
liberal thinkers as Spenser and Sidney. The new 
Archbishop chosen by the Queen mainly on account of 
his greater severity, was liked by few else. He pro- 
cured the appointment of the famous High Commis- 
sion Court, with jurisdiction over the whole kingdom; 
with power to inquire, openly or secretly, into all of- 
fences, contempts, and misdemeanors done against the 
ecclesiastical statutes ; to estimate the wickedness of 
all heretical opinions, seditious books, contemptuous 
speeches, and the like ; to punish all who absented them- 
selves from church, all who refused to sign the Thirty- 
nine Articles, and so forth. It was against this Court 
that the Commons indirectly aimed by a petition in 
which they prayed for various modifications of the High 
Commissioners' power, and a lessening of the over- 
bearing authority of the bishops. 

When the Queen prorogued Parliament on Monday, 
the 29th of March, she thanked the Commons for their 
attachment to her — shown, among other things, in their 
granting her an entire subsidy and two fifteenths and 
tenths, — but, at the same time, reprimanded them for 
their insubordinate temper concerning matters of reli- 
gion. Whoever found fault with the Church, she said, 
threw slander upon her, the rule of it being delegated 
to her by Heaven, and the suppression of errors being 
her sole prerogative. She had studied philosophy, she 
added, and few who were not professed followers of 



444 A MEMOIR OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. [Chap. xiv. 

science had read or reflected more than she had : she 
could see through the presumption of these new can*- 
vassers of Scripture who were plentifully rising up and 
starting fresh views, and she would no longer tolerate 
such hcentiousness. She intended to guide her people 
in the just mean between the corruptions of Eome and 
the errors of those modern sectaries who, professing to 
obey God, were disobedient to the regal authority, and, 
under the pretence of preaching His word, dared to 
exercise their private judgments and condemn the con- 
duct of their Sovereign.'"' 

This was the last of Sir Philip Sidney's parliamentary 
experience, no further meeting being held during his Kfe- 
time. If, as I imagine, he had sided with the reforming 
portion of the Commons, he did not on that account 
lose favour with Queen Elizabeth. He continued at 
Court, and in this final year of his English career we 
see him taking in her counsels a far more prominent 
glace than ever before. There are fewer records of his 
proceedings than we could wish, but almost every record 
gives separate indication of his conduct and throws fresh 
light upon his character. Everything interested him, 
and this year was very full of serious events. 

During the month following the prorogation of Parlia- 
ment he must have been much in company with his 
friend Walter Raleigh, now busy in organizing his new 
American colony, to be named Virginia, as the Virgin 
Queen, thereby paying a high compliment, had herself 
decreed. Seven ships, containing about a hundred and 

* D'Ewes. 



Et.^30.] THE FIRST ENGLISH COLONISTS. 445 



fifty men, were to go out, having for general Sir Ricliard 
Greenfield, Raleigh's cousin, and for civil governor Mr. 
Ealph Lane, Sidney's and Walsingham's favourite. Lane 
was now about fifty-five years old. Belonging to a vener- 
able Buckinghamshire family, and himself second cousin 
to Queen Catherine Parr, he had first gained the good 
opinion of Leicester and Burghley in 1569, by his brave 
soldiership against the rebel army of the Earls of Nor- 
thumberland and Westmoreland. After that he was a 
humble courtier, holding employment under the Queen 
as an equerry of Leicester's Band, and doing any work 
that was given to him ; sometimes going down to the 
coast to capture pirates, sometimes tilting at Whitehall, 
sometimes acting as a gentleman groom to her Majesty 
upon her progresses. No profit seems to have come to 
him from all this diligent service. Often he had made 
suit for employment or other recompense, but with no 
result; "having," as he said in July, 1583, "served 
her Majesty these twenty years, dispensed, as hath been 
often showed, twelve hundred pounds, spent my patri- 
mony, bruised my limbs, and yet, nevertheless, at this 
day not worth one groat by her Majesty's gift towards 
a living." "'''" It was probably at Walsingham's or Sid- 
ney's intercession that the Queen appointed him to be 
first governor of the first Enghsh colony in America. 
The fleet sailed from Plymouth on the 9th of April, 
1585. Though planned, as it appears, altogether by 
Raleigh, its movements were watched with equal interest 
by Sidney. Already he was dreaming, perhaps doing 

* ArchcBologia Americana, vol. iv. pp. 317 — 328. 



446 A MEMOIR OF SIR RHILIP SIDNEY. [Chap. XIV. 

much more than dreaming, about the fitness of going 
out on his own account upon a New World expedition. 
But he was needed in England. We have seen how, 
a couple of years earlier, he had written two letters to 
Lord Burghley, asking to be appointed Master of the 
Ordnance jointly with his uncle the Earl of Warwick. 
The request was granted on the 21st of July in the 
present year. On that day the Earl surrendered the 
patent which he had held for a quarter of a century and 
another was issued, bestowing the office upon him and 
Sir Philip Sidney, to be possessed by them jointly 
during life and, in the event of one dying, by the sur- 
vivor.'' For a long time before this date, however, 
Sidney appears to have acted as a deputy to his uncle. 
In May, he wrote to the Lord Treasurer a very curious 
letter, indicating not only his own growing importance 

* The original document is as follows : 

" Regina, etc., cum nos per literas nostras patentes, etc. Datum 
apud Westmonasterium xii-mo. die Aprilis anno regni nostri secundo, 
etc., dederimus et concesserimus dilecto consanguineo et fideli con- 
ciliario nostro Ambrosio comiti Warwici, per nomen Ambrosii Dudley 
militis, domini Dudley oflacium magistri omnium et omnimodi Ordi- 
nationum variarum, etc. Quas quidem literas patentes idem comes 
nobis in cancellariam nostram sursum reddidit, cancellandum ea tamen 
intentione, ut nos alias literas nostras patentes de officio prsedicto et 
cseteris proemissis superius expressis eidem comiti et dilecto et fideli 
nostro Pbilippo Sidney militi in forma sequenti facere dignaremur. 
Sciatis igitur quod nos, etc., dedimus et concessimus, etc., dilecto fideli 
consanguineo nostro Ambrosio comiti Warwici et prsefato Philippo 
Sidney militi, et eorum diutius vivendum officium magistri omnium et 
omnimodi ordinationum nostrarum, etc., ac prsefatum comitem et 
Pliilippum Sidney et eorum alterum diutius vivendum magistrum 
nostrarum, etc., facimus, etc. Datum xxi-mo. die Julii ; xi-mo, pars 
patentis, anno 27 Eliz." — State Paper Office, MSS., Domestic Corre- 
lence, James J., vol. iii., No. 62. 



itSb. ] MASTERSHIP OF THE OEDNANCB. 447 

in the State and the sort of service he was just now 
doing for his country, but also the uncertain standing 
which even Burghley, by far the most firm-footed of all 
Queen Elizabeth's servants, sometimes held in the royal 
favour. It is not altogether strange that — even in this 
time of great European excitement, and when England 
was on the point of beginning a struggle, whose issue 
was a matter of great dread to even the most ardent 
thinkers — the storehouse of munition should be empty ; 
for parsimony was a prominent feature in the character 
of Elizabeth ; and it is possible that the Lord Treasurer, 
aiming to be like his mistress, to please her by his 
economy, may here have surpassed her in her own art. 
But it is certainly curious that the same great states- 
man who not eighteen years ago had written about 
" the darling Philip," and had praised him for his boyish 
virtues, should now find the young man taking almost 
foremost place as the champion of a line of policy oppo- 
site to his own and much more conducive to the honour 
of England. 

On the 15th of May, in reply to a letter which he 
had received from Lord Burghley, and in which he was 
blamed for having too plainl}'- represented to the 
Queen the destitute condition of her ordnance stores, 
Sidney thus wrote : — 

" Right Honourable my very good Lord, 

" I will not fail on Monday morning to wait at the Tower 
for the performance of her Majesty's commandments therein. Your 
Lordship in the postscript writes of her Majesty's being informed of 
great wants and faults in the office ; wherewith her Majesty seemeth 
to charge your Lordship for lack of reformation, more than your Lord- 



448 A MEMOIR OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. [Cnvp. xiv 

ship doth deserve. For my part, I have ever so conceived. But, 
because your Lordship writes it particularly to me, who of that oflBce 
am driven to have sometimes speech with her Majesty, I desire, for 
truth's sake, especially to satisfy your Lordship, if perhaps your Lord- 
ship conceive any doubt of me therein. Indeed, having in my speech 
not once gone beyond these limits, to acknowledge, as in honesty I 
could not deny, the present poverty of her Majesty's store, and therein 
to excuse my Lord of Warwick, as in conscience I might and in duty 
ought to do, without further aggravating anything against any man 
living ; for I cannot, not having been acquainted with the proceedings. 
And so, hoping your Lordship will so conceive of it, I humbly take 
my leave. At Court. This 15th of May. 

" Your Lordship's humbly at commandment, 

" Ph. SiDi^y.'' 

To this manly letter was added a postscript : — 

" Her Majesty did not once name your Lordship, nor any belong- 
ing to the office, but Sir William Pelham, who, her Majesty said, did 
lay all the fault upon my Lord of Warwick's deputy, whereupon I 
only answered that the money neither my lord nor any of his had ever 
dealt with."* 



* State Paper Office, MSS., Domestic Correspondence^ Elizabeth, 
vol. clxxviii. No. 54. The following short letter, written a day later 
than the one quoted above, having, like it, never been printed "before, 
is worth copying in illustration of Sir Philip Sidney's kindly dis- 
position. It is from the same MS. volume, No. 58. 

" To the Right Honourable Sir Francis Walsingham, Principal 
* Secretary, etc. 

''Eight Hoi^ohrable, 

" I do humbly beseech you that it will please you to recom- 
mend Mr. John Peyty's bill to Mr. Nikasius in some earnest manner, 
because it imports him much, and he is one whom from my childhood 
I have had great cause to love. The matter, as it seems, requires 
some speed, and therefore I am the bolder to trouble you herein, 
which I conclude for my hearty prayers for your long and happy life. 
At Court. This 16th of May, 1585. 

" Your humble son, 

" Ph. Sidney.'^ 



1685. 
^t. 30, 



] SCOTTISH POLITICS. 449 



From this letter we see how zealously Sidney was 
keeping watch over the home defences. He was also 
seeking every other possible way of helping on the 
one great business he had at heart. It was that all might 
be in readiness for any possible resistance against the 
Spanish power, that he made close inspection of the 
Tower long before he was appointed Master of the 
Ordnance. It was mainly in hope of adding strength 
to the same cause that he took part in the complicated 
affairs of Scotland.* 

Scottish pohtics were in a very hopeless state. For 
now nearly eighteen years the luckless Mary Stuart 
had been, in one way or another, a captive to Queen 
Ehzabeth, and her lucky, but thoroughly despicable 
son had been reigning as King James the Sixth. It 
is hard to say whether the mother or the son gave 
more trouble to English statesmen, and stirred up 
more danger to the Enghsh welfare. The discovery of 
Babington's conspiracy, ugliest and most perilous of a 
long series of plots, was proving to all fair judges that, 
in the present condition of Europe, Mary's execution, 
hard deahng though it might be, was the only safe pro- 
ceeding. Unfortunately there was no good excuse for 
executing James, hereafter to be King of England. 
All that could be done, therefore, was to keep close 
watch upon him, and use the best means of hindering 
him from making mischief. Lately the main source of 
perplexity had been his partiality for the Earls of 
Arran and Lennox, and the consequent rebellious feeling 

* State Paper Office MSS., Domestic Correspondence, Elizabeth^ 
vol. clxxviii. No. 58. 

G G 



450 A MEMOIR OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. ICnAP. xiv. 

of the Earl of Gowry, the Master of Glamis, and many 
others. In 1582, the Gowry party had seized the 
young King's person at Kuthven, and imprisoned or 
banished the leaders of the opposite faction. In 1583, 
after a year's feigned liking of his position, James had 
made his escape, released Arran and the others, and 
expelled most of his sometime guardians. Matters 
being in this state, Walsingham had been sent, in 
September, 1583, to use all his influence with the 
King; and to report fully to Elizabeth. His report was 
to the effect that her Majesty was right in her estimate 
of James's character ; he was ready, at any moment, 
to requite kindness with ingratitude : everywhere he 
was misliked for his dissimulation and treachery : and 
now the captive Queen, his mother, ever the chief mover 
of disaffection, had half persuaded him to change his 
rehgion, promising him the support of a large party in 
England, and the willing aid of Spain.* Yet Wal- 
singham's frequent arguments in some degree pre- 
vailed, or, at any rate, had the show of prevailing. 
The Earl of Arran, moreover, by his overbearing inso- 
lence, brought himself into disfavour, and in losing 
him a certain amount of good seems to have been 
gained. 

Thus stood matters at the period of Sidney's life 
which we are now tracing out. His old friend Edward 
Wotton, who ten years before had studied with him at 
Vienna, was now ambassador in Scotland, and the 

* State Paper Office MSS., Scottish Correspondencey Elizabeth^ vol. 
xxxiii. No. 58. 



if 30. ] SCOTTISH POLITICS. 451 

Master of Gray, a new friend, whose acquaintance 
Sidney made when in the previous October he came on 
an embassage to London, was now gaining an influence 
for the most part honestly meant and used. Through 
them, it appears, Sidney procured trustworthy informa- 
tion as to the movements of the northern King, and 
some things that he heard stirred him to prompt 
exertion. I cannot see that he ever concerned himself 
much about the Scottish matters of most interest for 
the generality of Englishmen. Respecting Mary's con- 
spiracies, and James's plots for his succession to the 
rule of England upon Ehzabeth's demise, he appears to 
have suggested nothing. But as soon as there was 
revival of the old fear that Scotland would be leagued 
with Spain, he was moved to action. On this point we 
have not much information ; but it seems that Sidney, 
rightly discoveriug one of King James's weaknesses, 
took the lead in procuring from Queen Elizabeth the 
promise of a pension to be given him if he would hold 
aloof from Philip the Second's movements. On the 
23rd of May we find Walsingham writing by his son- 
in-law's advice to urge upon Wotton the importance of 
thus working upon James : " but," said the prudent 
Secretary, " you must be cautious how you broach the 
subject, lest the smallness of the sum allowed by her 
Majesty do more harm than good." * 

Out of this project of Sidney's nothing save a 
collection of useless correspondence resulted. Seeing 



* State Pa^Der Office MSS., Scottish Correspondence, Mizabethy vol. 
xxxvii. No. 44. 

G G 2 



453 A MEMOIR OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. [Chap. xiv. 

liow matters stood at the Scottish Court, and how 
paltry was the pension offered, Wotton, after taking 
coutisel with the Master of Gray and others, pro- 
bably did well in never tendering it to King James. 
There were other and fitter ways of propitiating that 
monarch's little mind. In June the Queen sent him a 
present of horses, most beautiful in shape and goodly in 
bearing ; and we are told that he mounted and managed 
them to the great contentment both of himself and of 
his courtiers.* 

In various ways, which we are not now able to make 
plain, Sidney appears to have taken part in Scottish 
politics. His friend the Master of Gray, who seldom 
wrote to London without sending some affectionate 
message to Sir Philip, f was foremost in his efforts to 
dissuade the King from joining in the Spanish league. J 
In a letter to a London correspondent, dated the 31st 
of July, he said, " I commend me heartily unto you, 
and will you to do the same to all my friends in my 
name, but chiefly to Sir Philip Sidney. Pray him that 
he do according to the postscript of my letter ; for in 
that stands my weal, and otherwise my overthrow.''' § 
I have been unable to find the postscript referred to, or 
to identify this particular matter in which Sidney's 
influence was reckoned of such great value. But the 
allusion is enough for my purpose in attempting to 

* State Paper Office MSS. Scottish Correspondence, Mizahetliy vol. 
xxxvii. No. 63. 

t Ibid., vol. xxxvii. ]S"os. 49, 77, etc. 
X Ibid., vol. xxxvii. No. 82. 
§ Ibid., vol. xxxvii. No. 108. 



1585. 
^t. 30. 



] MOYEMENTS m THE LOW COUNTRIES. 453 



gather up some links in the chain of evidence as to the 
importance of his poKtical connections at this period of 
his hfe. 

Of Scottish affairs, however, very uninteresting, and 
only instructive inasmuch as they were vile, I have no 
wish to say more than can be helped, and I fancy that 
Sidney avoided the ground as much as he could with 
honour. Business far more to his liking was provided 
on the continent, and was being brought from the 
continent to England. In these summer months the 
concerns of the Netherlands were specially brought 
under his attention. On the 26th of June, several of the 
leading men in the Low Countries came to London in 
deputation to Queen Elizabeth. 

For some time past everything had been tending to 
make the Flemish struggle more important than it had 
ever been before. We have seen what mischief fol- 
lowed upon the murder of WilKam of Orange. The 
main current of patriotism was by no means weakened; 
it rather gained strength and made more splendid show 
by reason of the fresh trouble which had to be over- 
passed, — like the river which hard rocks convert into 
a cataract ; but many little streams of selfishness and 
narrow-minded policy were parted off, and thereby 
there seemed to be diminishment of power. Several 
towns made surrender of their liberty to the Duke of 
Parma; many alKes transferred their friendship to 
Parma's master, Philip the Second of Spain. The 
greatest benefit, though it seemed to be the most 
terrible loss, was the severance of France from the Low 
Countries' cause. Through the later years of the Duke 



454 A MEMOIR OP SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. [Chap. XIV. 

of Anjou's life, the favourite wish of his mother, 
Catherine de' Medici, had been that he should become 
king, or duke, or absolute master with some title or 
other, of the Netherlands. For this she had seemed to 
break through her natural affinity for the crooked policy 
of Spain, and had made pretence of sympathy with the 
brave battling of the States for freedom. But, Anjou 
being dead, she had no further motive for dissimulation. 
Hence, — to pass over many intermediate proceedings 
and relate only the result of the whole, — when, in the 
spring of 1585, the Low Country deputies presented 
themselves at Paris, and sought help against Spain 
from her and her obedient son. King Henry the Third, 
they received very scurvy treatment, and soon saw, as 
ic was intended they should see, that no help would be 
given them. Therefore the States looked to England 
for assistance. 

England had all along been the proper quarter from 
which assistance was to be sought, and for some years 
Queen Elizabeth had given, in a secret way, both 
good word and good gold for the furtherance of the 
cause. Sidney and Walsingham, and all the noblest 
politicians in our land, echoed the thought of all the 
worthiest Protestants of the continent, that help ought 
to come from England ; all hoped, till they were weary 
of hoping, that it would be suitably afforded. Perhaps 
Queen Elizabeth and her counsellors were right in 
being so tardy in the matter. They had good reason 
for dreading war with Spain, and, so long as there 
was hope of the cause being otherwise maintained, they 
may have done well in holding back from a struggle 



Ml so.] ENGLAND AND THE NETHERLANDS. 455 

about which very much was to be feared and very httle 
to be hoped. If we give hearty praise to such true- 
hearted lovers of Hberty as Sir PhiHp Sidney and many 
others, unfettered by the responsibihties of office, we 
are bound to withhold blame from Queen EHzabeth and 
Lord Burghley for pausing long before they pubhcly 
aided the cause of freedom which they loved no less 
than did Sidney's party, although they more clearly saw 
its perils. It is enough that, when the necessity of action 
arose, they honestly undertook the work, notwithstanding 
its attendant risk. As soon as it was certain that France 
would not help the States, the Queen and her ministers let 
it be known that help might be claimed from England. 

Yet, even when that stage had been reached, there 
were many hindrances, real and imaginary, to be over- 
come. Sir Francis "Walsingham — who held the anoma- 
lous position of a Principal Secretary of State, over 
whom the Queen and the Lord Treasurer often acted 
unknown to him and in ways of which he quite dis- 
approved — was heartily dissatisfied by the slow wind- 
ings of diplomacy in reaching an end to which the 
direct road was very simple ; and Sir Philip Sidney 
seems to have been much more dissatisfied. He had 
heard so many promises which were unfulfilled, and 
had seen so many strong beginnings which dwindled 
away into nothing, that he trusted very little, I infer, 
to the likehhood of good resulting from this new depu- 
tation which, as we have seen, reached London on the 
26th of June, 1585. 

But, as it happened, there was real ground for hope 
at last. The deputies had audience of the Queen, at 



456 A MEMOIR OF SIR rillLIP SIDNEY. [Chap.xiv. 

Greenwich, on Tuesday, the 29th of the month ; and 
then a very eloquent and memorable speech was de- 
livered by Menin, their leader. On behalf of the United 
Provinces, he heartily thanked her Majesty for the past 
affection and the great favour which she had always 
shown to them, but which lately had been most of all 
apparent. Then at some length he went on to say 
that, considering how they were now suffering more 
painfully at the hands of the King of Spain than even 
the poor Indians whom he was causing to be cruelly 
persecuted in the New World ; considering how all the 
Protestants of the States looked to her, the Protectress 
and Defendress of the Faith, for help in expelling this 
manifest tyranny and servitude which Philip was trying 
to introduce, and for strength to preserve those liberties, 
rights, and privileges, against which so many leagues 
were being formed and so many rumours, subtilties, and 
base ambushes were being designed ; they now offered 
to her Majesty the sovereignty of the Provinces, if, 
by aiding them, she would do a work right royal and 
most magnificent, acceptable to God, profitable to all 
Christendom, and worthy of immortal commendation."^^' 
EHzabeth at once declined the sovereignty ; but she 
promised to give prompt and powerful help to the cause 
by sending men and money into the Netherlands. In 
the following weeks frequent interviews were had with 
the Queen or with her ministers ; the result being a 
treaty by which it was stipulated that as soon as pos- 
sible she would send over an army of five thousand foot 

* Nichols, Royal Progresses, vol. ii. pp. 437 — 440. 



if ^30.] THE ENGLISH TREATY WITH THE NETHERLANDS. 457 

and a thousand horse, equipping and paying them 
out of the EngUsh exchequer ; that the general whom 
she selected and two others to be specified should 
take rank in the Council of the States ; that neither 
party should make peace without the other s consent ; 
and that at the close of the war all its expenses should 
be paid by the Netherlands, the Queen holding the 
towns of Flushing and Brill, with the castle of Eamme- 
kins, as a security for the liquidation of the debt. 

This treaty is very memorable. It provided Sir 
Philip Sidney with the last and by far the most im- 
portant employment ever conferred upon him by the 
Crown. From the very beginning he seems to have 
been talked of as the fittest man to assume the govern- 
ment of Flushing, and thus to occupy, if not the most 
showy, nearly the most important place in the whole 
undertaking. Yet it appears that he did not enter very 
warmly into the project. He who had for so many 
long years been urging the rescue of the Netherlands, 
and who now was more eloquent than ever in protesting 
against the overgrown and tyrannical poweV of Spain, 
appeared to be almost callous when an opportunity of 
furthering his plans occurred.'"* 

But if thoughtless lookers-on accused him of incon- 
sistency, wise men saw through the mystery, and under- 
stood how brave and manly was his proceeding. We 
have already noticed how he had lately been changing 
his judgment as to the fittest place for battling with 

* Fulke Greville, Life, pp. 90, 91. State Paper Office MSS., 
Foreign Corresponde7ice, Holland , 13th Sept. 1585. 



458 A MEMOIR OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. [Chap. XIV. 

Philip of Spain. That much hard, deadly battling there 
must be, he knew better, perhaps, and announced more 
eloquently, than any other man living in his day. But 
■where should the strife be carried on 1 For years he 
had thought, with every one else, that the Netherlands, 
the scene of the present contest, was the best ground on 
which to continue the fight. But now, looking at the 
strength of men and of munitions which the King of 
Spain had heaped up in that portion of his dominions, 
and feeling that it would be especially difficult to defeat 
him there, and that, even if the defeat were effected, it 
would only be the lopping off of an arm from a huge 
monster, whose physical energy could quickly replace 
the loss, he urged that the battle-field should be shifted. 
He began to think with distrust of his own former pro- 
jects for boldly attacking Spain, either by aiding the 
patriotic party in Portugal, or by seizing Seville, Cadiz, 
or any other Spanish fort. He felt that they were far 
too venturesome for the State to undertake. Besides 
that, he was losing all confidence in the administrators 
of his country. " He found,'' wrote his friend Fulke 
Greville, in one very notable sentence, " he found great- 
ness of worth and place counterpoised by the arts of 
power and favour ; the stirring spirits sent abroad as 
fuel to keep the flame far off, and the effeminate made 
judges of danger which they feared, and honour which 
they understood not.'' * He knew that Queen Eliza- 
beth and Lord Burghley were honest in their wish to 
help the cause of European liberty ; " yet," said the 

* Fulke Greville, pp. 91, 92. 



^t30.] THE KEW WORLD PROJECT. 459 

same trustworthy authority, " he perceived her governors 
to sit at home in their soft chairs, playing fast and loose 
with those that ventured their lives abroad." * 

Therefore, v^e are further told, upon a due consider- 
ation of the whole condition of affairs, seeing that his 
favourite projects, either of a European league or of an 
independent attack upon Spain itself, would require 
greater resolution, union, and expense than the natural 
diffidence and apathy of the reigning sovereign could 
well endure, — and besides, the freedom of choice being 
taken away, or at least obstructed by the fatal mists of 
ignorance or the fallacious counsels of ministers, he con- 
sidered that the only creditable means left was to trust 
to his own hand, and to assail the King of Spain by 
invasion or incursion in the West Indies. f 

This very memorable scheme was not altogether of 
Sidney's own invention. It was doubtless suggested by 
the occasional attacks upon Spanish ports and vessels 
with which Drake, five years before, had relieved the 
monotony of his voyage round the world. There were 
others even now propounding and putting into force 
similar suggestions, in which the rough manly spirit of 
the age spoke out very bravely. England under 
Elizabeth was in much more of a school-boy condition 
than our own generation, three centuries older and 
more sedate, though perhaps not wiser or more pro- 
found, is at all disposed, or at all bound, to rival. But 
the thought was wholesome and proper in Sidney's 



* Fulke Greville, p. 92. 
t Ibid., pp. 123, 124. 



460 A MEMOIR OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. [Chap. XIV. 

day ; and during the first three quarters of this year, 
1585, amid his parHamentary and courtly duties, amid 
the claims of his own home, and the responsibilities of 
his office of Master of the Ordnance, while he was 
threading the mazes of Scottish politics, and during all 
the wearisome delays of Low Country diplomacy, he 
was giving it greater clearness and completeness than it 
had ever had before ; he was raising it from any sem- 
blance of piracy to the character of a high and noble duty. 
The plan, rooted in his mind, grew to more and more 
glorious shape. Not only, he perceived, would it add 
indirectly, but very materially, to the power and dignity 
of England, and room be afforded for the exercise of 
those large military powers which, albeit yet tried only 
in holiday tournament, he knew quite well to be within 
him. Not only would a great service to humanity be 
done by his helping the poor natives now struggling 
under the grossest of all tyrannies. He felt that a holy 
vengeance would thus be executed upon the doers of 
those hypocritical cruelties which, under cover of con- 
verting souls to God, sent millions of men better than 
themselves they cared not whither ; upon men who 
instead of spreading the Christian religion by their own 
good life, committed such horrible inhumanities as gave 
to those who knew nothing about God, but ought to be 
taught to love Him, an occasion of scorn against our 
sacred things, and abhorrence to the devilish character 
of what seemed so tyrannical a Deity.* 

Herein, it will be seen, Sidney gathered up the strag- 

•^ Fulke GrevUle, pp. 130, 131. 



3585. 
^t. 30. 



] THE NEW WORLD PEOJECT. 461 



gling plans of his friends ; Drake, who aimed simply 
to damage Spanish power and property, and Raleigh, 
who endeavoured to plant a simple colony. "While 
they had been acting, his project had gradually been 
assuming large and suitable form in his mind. There 
was evidence of it when he procured, in 1583, a charter 
for the finding and possessing of new lands ; and though 
he had given away the charter and postponed all idea 
of direct colonization, he had lost none of his zeal about 
American voyaging. The subject was much in his 
mind at the beginning of this year, 1585, and he talked 
freely about it to Ralph Lane, the governor whom 
Raleigh sent out with his expedition in April. Lane 
had not been long in Virginia before he wrote to 
Sidney about some matters, as he said, worthy of his 
participation. " We have,^^ he wrote, " by our dwelling 
upon the islands of St. John and Hispaniola, for the 
space of five weeks, so discovered the forces thereof, 
with the infinite riches of the same, as that I find it an 
attempt most honourable, feasible, and profitable, and 
only fit for yourself to be chief commander in. This 
entry would so gall the King of Spain, as it would divert 
his forces that he troubleth your part of Christendom 
with, into these parts, where he cannot greatly annoy 
us with them. And how greatly a small force would 
garboil him here, when two of his most richest and 
strongest islands took such alarms of us, not only 
landing, but dwelling upon them, with only a hundred 
and twenty men ! I refer it to your judgment. Finding, 
by mine own view, his forces at land to be so mean, and 
his terror made so great amongst those in England, 



462 A MEMOIR OP SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. fCHAP. xiv. 

considering that the reputation thereof doth altogether 
grow from the mines of his treasure, and the same in 
places which we see here are so easy both to be taken 
and kept by any small force sent by her Majesty, I could 
not but write these ill-fashioned lines unto you, and to 
exhort you, my noble general, by occasion, not to refuse 
the good opportunity of such a service to the Church of 
Christ, of great relief from many calamities that this 
treasure in the Spaniard's hands doth inflict unto the 
members thereof — very honourable and profitable for 
her Majesty and our country, and most commendable 
and fit for yourself to be the enterprizer of"* 

This letter, written on the 12th of August, could not 
have reached England before circumstances had led 
Sidney to abandon, for a time, and as it proved for 
ever, his New World projects. Its tempting words, when 
read, must have made the sacrifice seem greater. In the 
previous months he had been making vigorous prepa- 
rations for aiding the Low Country struggle in this new 
way. Besides giving his own wise thoughts, and all the 
money that he could save from his own scanty resources, 
we are told that he induced thirty gentlemen, of noble 
birth and estate, to provide a hundred pounds a-piece 
for fitting out a fleet powerful enough to act worthily in 
opposition to Spain.f The circumstances of this remark- 
able measure are very incompletely recorded. The fleet, 
it is said, was to act in conjunction with that of the Low 
Countries ; but, as there was no naval warfare just then 



* State Paper Office MSS., Colonial Correspondence, vol. i. No. 5. 
t Fulke GreviUe, p. 132. 



1585. J ^jjj, ^^^ WORLD PROJECT. 463 



^t. 30. 



being carried on in European Seas, it must have found 
some other scene of operation. I have no doubt that 
in its organization was the beginning of Sir Francis 
Drake's famous expedition to the West Indies. We 
know that Sidney did help Drake very largely ; indeed 
there is fair inference that his entreaties and arguments 
were the main reason for Sir Francis's undertaking a 
new voyage after five years of courtly indolence. Sidney 
provided him with men as well as money, using all his 
eloquence to gather together a suitable body of adven- 
turers. "To martial men," we learn, " he opened wide 
the door of sea and land, for fame and conquest : to 
the nobly ambitious, the far stage of America to win 
honour in : to the religious divines, besides a new 
apostolical calling of the lost heathen to the Christian 
faith, a large field of reducing poor Christians, misled by 
the idolatry of Rome, to their primitive Mother Church : 
to the ingeniously industrious, variety of natural riches 
for new mysteries and manufactures to work upon : to 
the merchants, with a simple people, a fertile and un- 
exhausted earth : to the fortune-bound, Hberty : to the 
curious, a fruitful womb of invention. Generally, the 
word gold was an attractive adamant to make men 
venture that which they have, in hope to grow rich by 
that which they have not."* 

In this cause we may picture Sidney as working 
largely through the summer of 1585. His plan, 
secretly held, was that, besides all the other help afi'orded 
by him, he should himself take part, and a prominent 

* Fulke GreviQe, p. 133. 



404 A MEMOIll OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. [Chap. xiv. 

part, as became him, in the expedition. As soon as 
they left England, he and Drake were to possess equal 
authority ; but, while the thing was in preparation, 
Drake was to have the name of it all. There was 
good reason for this secrecy. Now that his service to 
the State was held really valuable, Sidney could not 
have obtained the sanction of the Queen or the Govern- 
ment to so distant and hazardous an employment. It 
was also supposed, he alleged, that all his training 
having been in the strict art of fighting, not in the 
management of a ship, he would be unable to make 
wa}' through so many and such dangerous seas. Be- 
sides, he added, in a phrase to be remembered as a 
noble indication of his character, lie thought it always 
best to do a great thing first and let it be talked about 
afterwards, when neither the fears nor the gossip of 
friends could hinder him, and when the envy of 
enemies could not harm him.''^ Associated with Sidney, 
and in the same privacy, were Fulke Greville, — whose 
narrative of the affair is the pleasantest portion of all 
his extant writings, — and other friends whose influence, 
Drake thought, would give weight or fashion, and con- 
sequently add dignity, to the voyage. 

As we saw in the quoted summary of Sidney's argu- 
ments in favour of the expedition, he said nothing 
about attacking Philip of Spain. This, also, was with 
especial care kept secret, so that the King, not 
knowing the precise object of these preparations, might 
not know what part of his dominions he ought to keep 
in the best state of defence. f 

^ Fulke GreviUe, pp. 82, 83. t Ibid., p. 84. 



1585. 
^t. 30. 



] THE WINDINGS OF DIPLOMACY. 465 



Sidney^s share in the preparations was interrupted 
by the coming over of the deputies from the Nether- 
lands, and by the issue of their visit. But the 
negotiations did not progress very rapidly, and it 
appears that he, knowing well how dilatory and often 
how entirely fruitless was the diplomacy of his day, 
had not much faith in the result. I cannot see that he 
took as much share as might have been expected in the 
many interviews and discussions. It is not strange 
that he should have been disheartened. Every day 
brought intelligence which ought to have led to prompt 
action ; the greatest and most dismal, though by no 
means the only, piece of evil news being about the 
capitulation of Antw^erp to the Duke of Parma on the 
30th of July. But there were yet months of delay. 
Fault was on both sides ; and with the JSTetherlanders 
more than with the Enghsh. If Ehzabeth was to 
blame for an unwise parsimony in planning how she 
should at the same time give help to her oppressed 
neighbours and strike a successful blow at her own 
clandestine enemy, there w^as far greater error on the 
part of the people who allowed a falsely-called economy 
and the very opposite of prudence to guide them into 
the spending of ten times as much money as they 
washed to save, while it also involved immense loss of 
both credit and life. " 'Tis a manner of proceeding 
not to be allowed of,'' wrote Walsingham, the one pro- 
minent statesman of whom Englishmen, looking back 
at these times, can think with unchecked satisfaction, 
" considering that Her Majesty seeketh no interest in 
that country, as Monsieur and the French King did. 



466 A MEMOIR OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. [Chap. XIV. 

but only their good and benefit, ^vithout regard had of 
the expenses of her treasure and the hazard of her 
subjects' hves ; besides throwing herself into a present 
war for their sakes with the greatest prince and poten- 
tate in Europe. But seeing the good of those coun- 
tries resteth in the hands of merchants and advocates, 
the one regarding profit, the other standing upon 
vantage of units, there is no better trust to be looked 
to for them.'' * 

Those sentences were written to WiUiam Davison, at 
that time Ambassador in the Low Countries, after 
more than three weary months of diplomatic hesitation. 
We can understand how Sidney, long before, should 
have grown angry and hopeless, and how, even when 
the Queen promised that he should be appointed 
Governor of Flushing, his uncle, the Earl of Leicester, 
being Commander of the Forces and Lord-Lieutenant 
for Her Majesty, he could not look very cheerfully upon 
the prospects, or anticipate much good either to himself 
or to the cause which he had at heart. Yet even such 
poor hopes as he could hold were, for a time, to be 
rudely shaken, and he was to be driven by the royal 
caprice to a very imexpected line of action. Wal- 
singham, not yet knowing so much of the secret pro- 
jects of his son-in-law as we are able to spell out, 
wrote to Davison on the 13th of September, saying, 
" Sir Philip hath taken a very hard resolution to 
accompany Sir Francis Drake in his voyage, moved 



* MS. in tlie State Paper Office, cited by Motley, United Nether- 
lands, vol. i. p. 337. 



loS5. 
^t. 30. 



] EIYAL CLAIMS. 467 



thereto for that he saw Her Majesty was disposed to 
commit the charge of Flushing unto some other ; which 
he reputed would fall out greatly to his disgrace, to see 
another preferred before him, both for birth and judg- 
ment inferior unto him_. The despair thereof and the 
disgrace that he doubted he should receive have car- 
ried him into a different course/' " 

The history of this proceeding is in every way 
curious. The new phase of Low Country politics 
having called away Sidney's attention from the West 
Indian scheme, Drake appears to have made arrange- 
ments for going alone, and undoubtedly this change of 
plan much pleased him. His policy throughout the 
transaction was not altogether creditable. He was 
very willing to receive all Sir PhiUp's valuable aid 
in suitably fitting out the expedition. But he wished 
the aid to end there, not at all caring to have a com- 
panion who, being far superior to him in family dignity 
and in native grace, should be, as soon as they put to 
sea, his equal in official rank. He could not, however, 
help acceding, in word at least, to Sidney's proposal 
that they should now revert to the discarded agree- 
ment. So he went down to Plymouth to make ready 
for their speedy departure, promising that as soon as 
the arrangements were completed, he would send secret 
word to London. 

The summons reached Sidney sooner than he ex- 
pected ; but fortunately, together with Drake's private 

* state Paper Oj95ee, MSS., Foreign Correspondence, Solland, vol. 
xxvi. Sept. 1585. 

H H 2 



468 A MEMOIR OF SIR riTILIP SIDNEY. [diAr.xiv. 

letter, came public news that Don Antonio, the weak 
claimant of the Crown of Portugal, of whom we have 
seen a little, was about to land at Plymouth. Sidney 
therefore asked and obtained permission to go and 
conduct the would-be King to London ; under that 
veil, we are told by Fulke Greville, who accompanied 
him, leaving the Court without suspicion, and over- 
shooting his father-in-law with his own bow.* At 
Plymouth he was greeted with much show of friend- 
ship, and feasted with great pomp by Drake. Greville, 
however, has recorded that he saw more in the 
Admiral's countenance than Sidney had leisure for. It 
was apparent to him that the Admiral did not like their 
coming ; but when he said so to Sidney, " that in- 
genuous spirit," as his words are, " though apt to give 
me credit, yet not apt to discredit others, made him 
instruct his own, and labour to change and qualify my, 
judgment.'' f Yet after several days' waiting, when he 
saw that the ships were neither ready nor likely to be 
ready for some while longer, and when he could not 
help observing " some sparks of false fire breaking out 
from his yoke-fellow daily," Sidney was forced to 
entertain all Greville's suspicions, to believe, in fact, 
that Drake had purposely called him down too soon, in 
order that his absence might be noticed at Court, and 
his project might be discovered and hindered by the 
Queen. 

Thus they waited for many days. If Drake, how- 
ever, was slow in going, Don Antonio was equally slow 

* Fulke Greville, p. 85. 
t Ibid., p. 86. 



]585. 
-^Et. 30. 



] PLOTS AKD COUNTERPLOTS. 469 



in coming ; so that Sidney had excuse for his delay. 
Yet Drake was not in this way to be baffled. From 
some one at Plymouth — Sidney and Greville never 
doubted from whom — a message was sent stealthily to 
Court, representing the real state of the case. In return 
a prompt order was despatched by the Queen, to the 
effect that the two from Court were to be stayed : 
if they refused, the whole fleet was to be kept back : 
on no account was Drake to sail with them on board. 
Now it was Sidney's turn to scheme. Some good friend 
at Court sent him early notice of the order being on its 
way, and he had time to dress up as sailors two soldiers 
whom he could trust, and to pack them off to meet the 
courier, get into conyersation with him, after the man- 
ner of old mariners, and purloin the letter. News of 
the loss, however, came to Her Majesty's ears before 
Sidney had time to leave Plymouth. A more im- 
perious mandate was at once prepared, and this time 
care was taken to have it properly conveyed. It was 
delivered, we learn, into Sir Philip's own hands by a 
peer of the realm. It carried with it, " in the one 
hand grace, in the other thunder.'' The thunder was a 
threat that, if he quitted the Queen and her Court in this 
way, he should never return. The grace was a pledge 
that he should have employment under his uncle now 
going into the Low Countries. Against this, says our 
authority, he would gladly have demurred : but " the 
confluence of reason, transcendency of power, and fear 
of staying the wdiole fleet " made him immediately give 
way.- 

* Fulke Greville, pp. 87, 88. 



470 A MEMOIR OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. [Chap. xiv. 

On the 14th of September, Admiral Sir Francis 
Drake, having noAV no reason for more delay, but every 
reason for making haste, set sail from Plymouth at the 
head of twenty vessels, containing two thousand three 
hundred soldiers and seamen ; — one of the most 
splendid armaments that had ever yet ridden out 
of an English harbour, and mainly, we must suppose, 
collected through Sir Philip Sidney's great influence 
perseveringly used. It is no wonder that he yearned to 
accompany it. For Lieutenant-General, Drake had the 
famous Christopher Carlyle, the old comrade of Sir 
Humphrey Gilbert, and a kinsman of Walsingham's ; 
for Yice-Admiral, the still more famous Martin Fro- 
bisher ; and for Rear-Admiral, Francis Knollys, uncle 
of Lady Rich, and brother-in-law to the Earl of 
Leicester. The story of the splendid failure of this 
expedition deserves a little volume to itself. After 
visiting in warlike manner Saint Jago, Saint Domingo, 
Carthagena, Florida, and some other parts, Drake, with 
many glittering prizes to take the place of the seven 
hundred men who had been killed, came home by way 
of Virginia. There he found Ralph Lane and the other 
colonists, whom Raleigh had sent out a year before, in 
great trouble, and giving them some of the vacant 
space in his ships, he brought them home in June of 
1586. Thus there was one ending, and a useless one, 
to both the New World projects about which Sidney 
had so largely interested himself. Had he, with greater 
administrative tact than Raleigh, and with more con- 
sistency of character than Drake, attempted either 
work, the issue might have been very different, and he 



1535. 
^t. 30. 



] A FATHER. ' 471 



might have lived to make a broader, though it could 
hardly have been a deeper, mark upon the history of 
his country. But this was not to be. 

With the Queen's second promise of employment in 
the Netherlands to comfort him, he spent two more 
months in England. Perhaps it was at some period 
in the course of these two months, or it may have 
been rather earher in the year, that his daughter 
Elizabeth was born. Of this event, as well as of 
nearly everything else belonging to his domestic his- 
tory, we have very scanty information. In the present 
instance, about all that we know is that Queen Eliza- 
beth, willing to show favour to the courtier whom in 
her own strange neglectful way she really admired, 
acted as sponsor to the child who was named after 
her. The two quaint entries, in an account book of 
royal expenses, which attest this fact, are worth quoting 
in full. They are as follows : — 

" J^em. — Paid to Ricliard Brackenbury, one of the ordinary gentle- 
men ushers of her Majesty's chamber, to be by him distributed and 
given by way of her Majesty's reward to the nurse and midwife, at 
the christening of Sir Philip Sidney's daughter, to whom her Majesty 
was godmother, the sum of one hundred shillings. 

" Item. — Paid to Richard Brackenbury, one of the ordinary gentle- 
men ushers of her Majesty's chamber, one groom of the chamber, 
and one groom of the wardrobe, for riding from the Court at Rich- 
mond to London, to make ready for her Majesty, against the 
christening of Sir Philip Sidney's daughter, by the space of four days, 
in the month of November, 1585, as appeared by a bill signed by the 
Lord Chamberlain, sixty-six shillings and eightpence.* 



* British Museum, Had. MSS., 1641. 



CHAPTER Xy. 



WAR AND ITS ACCESSORIES. 

1585—1586. 



From his appointment to take part in the strife now 
waging in the Netherlands better work fell to Sidney 
than could have issued from his projected voyage with 
Drake. Before long he must himself have thought so. 
His opinion that Holland was not the best battle-ground 
between England and Spain may have been correct ; 
but as, by a long series of earlier events, the scene of 
warfare had been clearly marked out, it was evident 
that there the strife must be continued. And certainly 
it was far better that the whole English nation should 
enter upon a public contest, than that private and 
half-piratical attacks should be made by individual 
adventurers. 

The time for open war had fully come. Spain and 
France, the two friends of Rome, had been plotting 
for years ; but, though one in purpose, their selfish ends 
had till now kept them at variance. Catherine de' 
Medici, whose strong bad intellect made her virtually 
the ruler of France, had set her heart upon making the 
Duke of Anjou master of the Netherlands, and therefore, 
while he lived, she had played with the Protestants, 
and professed herself their friend. His death, however, 



if 30.] THE WAR 11^ THE NETHERLANDS. 473 

caused a total change in her tactics. Removing most of 
the points of difference between her and Phihp of Spain, 
it made an aUiance with him expedient and almost 
necessary. Hence arose the Holy League on the one 
side, and on the other, the necessary union of all friends 
of political and religious liberty. In the spring of 
1585 we find the Queen-Mother boldly proposing to 
King Philip that they should jointly invade England, 
and crush its heretical rule. King Phihp, not less 
wicked but more prudent than the Queen-Mother, 
replied that there were heretics much nearer to both 
France and Spain, whom it was their plain duty to 
crush first.'" The chief heretic, King Henry of Navarre, 
husband to Catherine's own daughter Margaret, was 
certainly in a perilous condition. " The storm has 
come at last,'' wrote Du Plessis Mornay, Henry's 
secretary, and Sidney's friend, on the 8th of July, in a 
letter pleasantly indicative of Sir Philip's continental 
fame. "Is it from our own apathy, or from others' 
treachery, or from both 1 I cannot say ; but somehow 
it has fallen. The King has taken his resolution ; may 
God give him strength enough for his trials. Do you 
also help him, according as he may need : let your zeal 
grow with his necessities. I know this will be sufficient 
for you. Utinam, et rursum utinam. Believe me at 
all times your servant, an admirer of your virtue, and 
very anxious for the growth of your reputation." f 

The relative position of Catholics and Protestants 
being such, it was evident to every patriot and states- 

* Motley, United Netherlands, vol. i. p. 107. 

t Memoires de Du Flessis Mornay, tome iii, p. 158. 



474 A MEMOIR OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. [CoapXY. 

man, to cautious Burghley and giddy Leicester, as much 
as to blunt, upright Walsingham, that England must join 
in the contest. Therefore, after much diplomacy and 
discussion, the treaty signed at Nonsuch, on the 1 0th of 
August, 1585, stipulated that Queen Elizabeth should 
provide five thousand foot soldiers, and one thousand 
horsemen, for aiding the war in the Netherlands, and 
that, as surety for the payment of all expenses and as 
suitable head-quarters for her troops, she should take 
temporary occupation of the towns of Flushing and 
Brill, and of the castle of Rammekins. Soon after- 
wards Her Majesty issued a noble proclamation. In it, 
having first defined the duty which princes owed to 
God, she spoke fully and eloquently about the ancient 
friendship which had been between the English and the 
Netherlanders, going back to the time when the two 
peoples, speaking Anglo-Saxon and Frisian, were as 
near in language to one another as were man and wife. 
Then she expatiated on the cruelty a^d tyranny of the 
Spaniards, shown not only to Protestants, but even to 
such brave CathoHcs as Count Egmont and his com- 
rades. The Low Countries, she said, had become 
desolate through fire and sword, through famine and 
murder, all traceable to the ungodly pohcy of King 
Philip the Second of Spain. Often had she warned her 
brother of Spain with all sisterly and neighbourly words 
of honest reproach and earnest counsel ; but no good had 
come therefrom. The evil and the danger had steadily 
grown, and now she was forced to take up the sword 
and let its arguments be tried. In entering upon this 
war, said Her Majesty in conclusion, she had only three 



1585 
Mt. 30 



. ] GOVERNOR OF FLUSHING. 475 



objects before her, and they were holy ones — the pro- 
curement of peace to all holders of the Reformed Faith, 
the restoration to the Netherlands of their political and 
time-honoured rights, and the safety of England.* 

On the 7th of November, very soon after that famous 
utterance of the Queen's mind, a patent was granted 
at Westminster, appointing Sir Philip Sidney to be 
Governor of Flushing and of Eammekins ; f Sir Thomas 
Cecil, eldest son of Lord Burghley, and Sidney's senior 
by a dozen years, being nominated to the humbler post 
of Governor of Brill ; and the Earl of Leicester being 
commissioned as Commander of the Forces, and leader 
of the whole expedition. For private secretary Sidney 
chose Mr. William Temple, | student of King's College, 
Cambridge, a skilful wielder of the pen, and a warm 
champion, under the feigned name of Mildapettus, of 
Eamus, and his writings. Li 1584 he had dedicated 
to Sir Philip his edition of the philosopher's two books 
of Dialectics. He had probably received much earlier 
kindness from the master with whom he now quitted 
England. 

There was leave-taking of Queen and Court, of wife 
and parents, and on Tuesday, the 16th of November, 
Sidney departed for the Netherlands. § If joy and 
grief were mingled at quitting the society of those who 
loved him, to begin, as it seemed, a splendid military 
career, there was unmixed joy in the hearts of many on 

* Motley, vol. i. pp. 356, 357. 

t Zouch, p. 237. 

X Ibid., p. 239. 

§ Cotton. MSS., Galba, C. viii. fol. 211. 



476 A MEMOIR OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. [Chap. XV 

the Continent, who had been long expecting him. On 
the 12th of October Count Maurice of Nassau, eldest 
son of Prince William of Orange, had written to 
Davison, the English ambassador, saying how he would 
hold the noble Sir Philip Sidney as a brother and an 
honoured companion in arms.'"' On the 11th of this 
November, Davison himself had written to some un- 
known friend, complaining of the troublesome work 
that fell to him, and his desire to be rid of it. " The 
burthen I am driven to maintain doth utterly weary 
me,'' he said : and then he added, " If Sir Philip Sidney 
were here, and if my Lord of Leicester follow not all 
the sooner, I would use Her Majesty's liberty to return 
home.'' t It is curious to guess whether, in his reference 
to the Earl of Leicester, Davison made a grammatical 
blunder, or revealed more of his private thought than 
w^ould generally have been expedient. But the ex- 
pression was quite correct. The affairs of the Low 
Countries would have been better managed if the Earl 
had " not all the sooner " followed his nephew. 

Sidney, however, preceded him by no more than 
three weeks, and had only time to write a single letter, 
giving an account of his journey. " Upon Thursday," 
that is, the 18th of November, he wrote, "we came 
into this town, driven to land at Rammekins, because 
the wind began to rise in such sort as our masters 
durst not anchor before the town, and from thence 
came with as dirty a walk as ever poor Governor 

* Cotton. MSS., Galba, C viii. fol. 176. 

t State Paper Office, MSS., Foreign Correspondence, Holland, vol. 
xxviii. 



^^^^- ] FLUSHING, AND ITS VALUE. 477 



iEt. 30. 



entered his charge withal/'* There seems to have 
been not much show of greeting. All the powder had 
been spent by the soldiers and burghers on the previous 
afternoon, in their complimentary keeping of Queen 
Elizabeth's accession-day. Sir Philip, however, was 
welcome ; " so much the welcomer," wrote one D'Oyley 
to Leicester, " because he brought a supply of money, 
the want whereof caused a general discontentment." f 
The new Governor's own words are noteworthy ; " I 
find the people are very glad of me, and promise myself 
as much surety in keeping this town as the popular 
good- will, gotten by shght hopes, nourished by as slight 
conceits, may breed in me, for indeed the garrison is 
far too weak to command by authority, which is a pity, 
— for how great a jewel this is to the Crown of England 
and the Queen's safety, I need not write to your Lord- 
ship, who knows it so well. Yet I must needs say, 
the better I know it, the more I find the preciousness 
ofit."t 

Sidney had reason to be proud of his town. " Most 
strongly seated by nature, pleasant, and good,^' as Lei- 
cester's follower, Thomas Wilford described it, § Flushing 
was the key to all the Netherlands. Built on the south- 
ern edge of the little island of Walcheren, at the mouth 
of the Scheldt, it had command of all access by water 
to Antwerp, Brussels, Dendermonde, and Ghent. When 
rough weather made approach to it from the sea at all 
difficult, the neighbouring fortress of Rammekins pre- 
sented an excellent refuge, so that there were always 

* Cotton. MSS., Galba, C viii. fol.213. f Ibid., foL 211. 

t Ibid., fol. 213. § Ibid., fol. 209. 



478 A MEMOIR OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. [Chap, XV. 

opportunities of receiving troops, provisions, and any 
other necessaries. 

On Sunday, the 21st of November, Sir PhiHp Sidney 
took formal possession of his office, the requisite oaths 
being exchanged between him and the Magistrates of 
the town. Very modestly, and very prudently, he set 
himself with heart and soul, to find out the temper of 
the people among whom he was to work, and the best 
means of helping them. Of the quick eye and search- 
ing thought which he brought to bear upon every- 
thing before and around him, there is evidence in the 
letter written before he had held actual office for a com- 
plete day. Already, it appears, he had made shrewd 
observation of the whole state of affairs ; already he 
had begun to form plans and issue orders. " I have 
sent," he said, ''for my cousin Scot's company, for 
Colonel Morgan's, and for my brother's, which I mean 
to put in the Eammekins ; but I doubt I shall but 
change, and not increase the ensigns by any more than 
mine own company, for fear of breeding jealousies in this 
people, which is carried more by show than by sub- 
stance."" * He did not think very well of the Dutch- 
men. He found them poorly ruled ; " it being strange 
that the people show themselves far more careful than 
the governors in all things touching the public welfare." 
He had not arrived any too early. " I think truly if my 
coming had been longer delayed some alterations would 
have followed ; for the truth is the people is weary of 
war, and if they do not see such a course taken as may 

* Cotton, MSS., Galba, C viii., fol. 213. 



1585. 
^t. 31 



] DUTCH A'NB EI^GLISH ABUSES. 479 



be likely to defend them, they will in a sudden give over 
the causes/' 

On only one point was Sidney at fault, and here he 
had much excuse for his error. Like almost every one 
else at that time, he looked forward very anxiously to 
his uncle's arrival. " Good my Lord,'' he wrote, " haste 
away, if you do come, for, all things considered, I had 
rather that you came not at all than came not quickly, 
for, uncle, by your own presence these courses may be 
stopped, which, if they run on, will be past remedy.'^ 
" Your Lordship's coming," was the odd expression in 
another part of the letter, " is as much longed for as 
Messias is of the Jews ; but indeed most necessary it is 
that your Lordship make great speed to reform both 
the Dutch and EngKsh abuses. I am more and more 
persuaded that, with that protection which her Majesty 
alloweth, the country is fully able to maintain the wars, 
if what they do be well ordered, and not abused as it is 
by the States." * 

The Earl set out on the 8th of December, attended 
by a large part of the gayest and most gallant mem- 
bers of the Court, among the rest by the young Earl of 
Essex and Mr. Thomas Sidney, Sir Philip's youngest 
brother. On the 10th he arrived at Flushing, where 
he was met by his nephew and by Count Maurice of 
Nassau and all the leading townspeople. Guns were 
fired and soldiers marched to and fro. By order of the 
civil authorities bells were rung and bonfires kindled. 
After feasting at the Ambassador's house the Earl 

* Cottoti. MSS., Galba, C viii. Ms. 213, 214. 



480 A MEMOIR OF SIR rUTLTP SIDNEY. [Chap.xv. 

took boat, and went to inspect Rammekins. Thence 
he passed up to Middelburg, and there still greater 
honours were offered to him. On Christmas Eve,* a 
splendid feast was prepared. " In the first course of 
which feast,'' says the precise chronicler, " was nothing 
but boiled meats, most excellent and dainty. In the 
second course was all roast meats that could be thought 
of, pigs served in on their feet, and wild fowl, part in 
feathers. In the third course was all kind of baked 
meats, as fowls in pies with their heads and tails un- 
plucked, all beset with pendants of her Majesty's, the 
Lord Lieutenant's, the Countries', and diverse English- 
men's arms on the same. The fourth and last course 
was a rare banquet of incredible workmanship, as a 
castle of crystal founded upon a rock of pearl, about 
the which flowed silver streams, in which lay fowls, 
fishes, and beasts of all kinds, some hurt, some slain, 
and some gasping for breath ; on the top of the which 
was a fair virgin lady leaning and giving her hands 
over the castle to succour them, very wonderfully 
wrought. There was wine in abundance, music of all 
sorts, variety of all things, and wonderful welcome. The 
feast began at eleven o'clock before noon, and continued 
till five in the afternoon." f 

Let that description serve for illustration of one main 
characteristic of Leicester's leadership. Precious time 
and precious gold were wasted in festivities and shows, 
and the redress of grievances, for which Sir Philip 



* The 14th of December, according to the Old Style. 
t Hollinshed (Stowe's Continuation), vol. iii. p. 1425. 



^Ifli.] TWO SOETS OF LEADEESHIP. ~ 481 

Sidney looked so anxiously, was farther off than ever. 

It is pleasant to note how very differently the nephew 

was thinking and acting during these months. He was 

at Middelburg on the day of the six hours' dinner, and 

could hardly have helped sharing in it. Yet he found 

time for writing a long letter to his father-in-law, the 

Secretary of State. Already he had much to complain 

of. He had been appointed general of the few English 

troops and of all the Dutch forces in Flushing. But 

they were not enough. " We want supplies of men 

exceedingly," he wrote. " I am in a garrison as much 

able to command Flushing as the Tower is to answer 

for London ; and, for ought I can yet learn, it is hardly 

to be redressed, for the articles intend that there must 

be five thousand kept for the defence of the country 

besides the garrisons, so as out of them, without some 

ado, they may hardly be drawn. I mean truly, if I 

cannot have it helped here, to write a protestation 

thereof, both to her Majesty and the Lords of the 

Council, as a thing that I can no way take upon me to 

answer, if I be not increased by, at the least, four 

hundred men more than yet I have." * 

But even of the small force which he had, he found 
it difficult to take all the care that he desired. In the 
sixteenth century, as much as in the nineteenth, soldiers 
were thought excellent subjects for extortion. Sidney 
had employed agents for procuring good and cheap 
food, and he found the plan altogether a failure. " I 
assure you, sir," were his words, " they do as yet but 

* HarleianMSS., No. 285, fol. 164. 



482 A MEMOIR OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. [Chap. XV. 

badly satisfy the soldiers, and in my opinion are merely 
hurtful, by means of friendship for the officers forcing 
the poor men to take it dearer than here they miglit 
provide themselves/' Again : " The treasurer here pays 
our Zealand soldiers in Zealand money, which is five per 
cent, loss to the poor soldiers, who, God knows, want no 
such hindrances, being scarce able to keep life with 
their entire pay. If the commodity thereof be truly 
answered the Queen, yet truly is it but a poor increase 
to her Majesty, considering what loss it is to the mise- 
rable soldier. But if private lucre be made, it hath too 
hurtful a proportion of other such abuses here."'"' " It 
grieves me very much,'' was Sidney's manly protest, in a 
letter written to his uncle, six weeks later, on the 2nd of 
February, 1586, "the soldiers are so hardly dealt within 
your first beginning of government, not only in their pays, 
but in taking booties from them, as by your Excellency's 
letters I find. "When soldiers grow to despair and give 
up towns, then it is late to buy that with hundred 
thousands which might have been saved with a trifle."t 
To Leicester's credit be it said that, as far as it was 
convenient to him, he tried to better the condition of 
his troops. But he was too busy about other things. 
His motive in allowing himself to be made the hero of 
so much feasting and display, was not simply his love 
of good living, or even his liking of loud-sounding praise, 
although both tastes were strong in him. He had 
sought for the Lord Lieutenancy of the Netherlands, 



* Harleian MSS., No. 285, fol. 164. 
t Cotton. MSS., Galba, C. ix. fol. 44. 



Mtfi] THE EAEL OF LEICESTEE's POLICY. 483 

partly out of honest desire to serve the cause with 
which all his worldly wisdom and all his better nature 
were in sympathy, but also as affording a new and wide 
field for his ambition. The Queen had refused the 
sovereignty of the Low Countries ; but why might not 
he aspire to be virtually, and in the end, perhaps, even 
nominally, their king ? Certainly he was in every way 
a better man than the deceased Duke of Anjou : was 
he not handsomer and cleverer ? were not his Protes- 
tant principles and his training in a school of liberal 
politics, far stronger reasons for his taking this office 
than any which Catherine de' Medici could have ad- 
duced for her son 1 There can be no doubt that these 
were his thoughts, vaguely held and not at all expressed 
before he quitted England. He had not been long in 
Flanders before suspicious words were heard from him, 
and in his letters dim allusions were made to the pro- 
bability of some change. To this change he was warily 
working his way, his great courtesy and affable bear- 
ing towards the Netherlanders being but means of 
encouraging their confidence in him ; and he had every 
semblance of success. He had not been in the country 
ten weeks before he seemed to have gained everything. 
On the 14th of January, he assented to the offer of the 
States that, in addition to his humbler office of Lord 
Lieutenant for the Queen of England, and Commander- 
in-Chief of her Forces, he should be Governor- G-eneral 
of the United Provinces, with supreme power in all 
military and civil matters — licence as great and autho- 
rity as complete as had ever been accorded to Prince 
Wilham of Orange. 

I I 2 



484 A MEMOIR OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. [Chap. XV. 

But it was only a farce, very discreditable to himself, 
and not very creditable to the Queen of England, which 
Leicester here undertook to perform. The story of Eliza- 
beth's anger, and of the Earl's dissimulation and thorough 
meanness, worked out through several scenes, forms 
one of the oddest interludes in the history of the day. 
But it needs not to be related here. It is enough for us 
to note that the Earl, after in effect defying his mistress, 
wrote humbly to surrender everything, and to^ beg for 
his recall : " Here I can do your Majesty no service ; 
there I can do you some, at the least rub your horse's 
heels, a service which shall be much more welcome to 
me than this, with all that these men can give me ;" — 
and that the Queen, after throwing all her favourite 
oaths at her rebellious subject, was brought back to her 
old-womanish dalliance with him, letting him be her 
" sweet Robin " once again, finding it, as she said, hard 
to be so long without him, but, for the good of the 
Netherlands and of Europe, allowing him to retain his 
office until he had gained her victory.* 

Of course, during these disputes, there was no leisure 
for fairly entering on the battle which Leicester had 
been commissioned to win. Yet something was being 
done. Antwerp, ever since its capitulation in the 
summer of 1585, had been one great stronghold of 
Spanish power in the Netherlands. But the only 
access to it was by way of the Scheldt, and that river 
was locked up by Flushing, with Sir Philip Sidney for 
Governor. 

* See Motley's United Nefherlands, vol. i. passim. 



it^li. ] Sidney's work and projects. 485 

Sidney, however, wished to do much besides this 
passive service, valuable though it was in its way. 
Sometimes he was conferring with his uncle as to the 
best means of prosecuting the war." Sometimes he 
was conducting business ,at Middelburg,f sometimes at 
the Hague4 sometimes at Rotterdam, § sometimes at 
Bergen. || From the latter place he wrote to his uncle, 
urging the sending of forces to besiege Steenbergen. 
" With two thousand of your footmen, besides them 
that these quarters may spare, and three hundred of 
your horse, with them here about, I will undertake, 
upon my life, either to win it or to make the enemy 
raise his siege from Grave, or, which I most hope, 
both. And it shall be done in the sight of the world, 
which is most honourable and profitable. For these 
matters of practices," that is, secret practices, " I assure 
your Excellency they are dainty in respect of the 
doubleness which almost ever falls in them, and of the 
many impediments that fall in them, — that if notable 
reasons guide not, or some worthy person answer for it, 
they are better omitted than attempted.'^ Grave, built 
upon the Mouse, not far from Arnheim, held a garrison 
of Netherlanders, whom a detachment of Parma's army 
was trying to dispossess, and Sidney wished to cause a 
diversion in his own corner of the Netherlands. " There- 
fore," he proceeded, " if it please your Excellency to let 
• 

* Sarleian MSS,, No. 285, fol. 165. 

t Ibid., fol. 165. 

$ Ibid., No. 286, fol. 74. 

§ Cotton. MS8., Galba, C xi. fol. 265. 

II Ibid., Galba, C ix. fol. 44. 



486 A MEMOIR OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. (Chap x v. 

old Tuttj and Read, with Sir William Stanley and Sir 
William Russell, with two hundred horse, come hither, 
I doubt not to send you honourable and comfortable 
news of it ; for I have good understanding thereof, and 
I know what the enemy can do shall not serve if this 
may be done. Fite hundred pioneers, with munition 
and victuals, must be done, and, if God will, I will do 
you honour in it/''"' 

The Earl of Leicester liked his nephew's zeal, and 
wrote, at about this time, to Sir Francis Walsingham, 
saying how Sir Philip was -highly esteemed in those 
parts, and shortly would be able to do better service in 
the Queen's cause than could have been expected of 
him.f But he was not prompt in sending the requisite 
troops, or indeed in putting his army to any good 
service. " Here are no news," Sidney wrote satirically 
on the 12th of February from Rotterdam, "but that 
your band is of very handsome men, but unarmed, and 
merely spending money and time to no purpose.'' J 
A week later, after telling of several undertakings in 
which, though they were as yet " hopeful but not fully 
ripe," he trusted to do honour and good service to the 
great cause, and after again begging suitable aid, he 
went on to say — " The enemy stirs on every side, and 
your side must not be idle ; for, if it be, it quickly 
loseth reputation. I beseech your Excellency be not 
discouraged with the Queen's discontentments ; for, the 
event being anything good, your glory will shine 

* Cotton. MSS., Galba, Cis. fol. 44. 
t Harl. MSS., No. 285, fol. 183. 
t Cotton. MSS., Galba, C xi. fol. 265. 



^\%t ] Sidney's zeal and its kecompense. 487 

through those mists. Only, if it please you, have daily 
counsel taken of your means, how to increase them 
and how to husband them ; and, when all is said, if 
they can serve, you shall make a noble war ; if not, 
the peace is in your hand." * 

The extracts which I have been making from Sid- 
ney's letters will be sufficient — though many more 
might be added — to show the temper with which he 
took part in the Low Country struggle. It was too 
fine and pure a temper to meet with much sympathy 
in those times. The Queen, who had sent him to 
govern Flushing, was not well pleased with his bold 
condemnation of her dilatoriness and parsimony, f 
The Earl of Leicester, though glad of his nephew's 
successful work, seems just now to have been almost 
jealous of him, and disinclined to give him proper room 
for exercising his talent. The greater part of the 
courtiers in attendance upon both Queen and Earl, 
always willing to infer for themselves opinions from 
their leaders' countenances, were, during these months, 
especially ready to think and speak ill of a rival 
whose grace and genius made him so formidable. In 
illustration of all this, and of much else, I shall copy 
entire a letter which, written a month later than the 
latest of those from which quotations have already 
been made, sums up his thoughts about the war on the 
continent, as it affected both himself and his country, 
besides giving some suggestion of his more private 



* Cotton. MSS., Galba, C ix. fol. 93. 

t Bruce, Leicester Correspondence, pp. 116, 192. 



488 A MEMOIR OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. [Cnxp. XV. 

life. It was addressed to Sir Francis Walsingham, and 
ran thus : — 

" Right Honourable, 

' ' I receive divers letters from you, full of tlie discomfort 
which I see, and am sorry to see, that you daily meet with at home ; 
and I think, such is the good will it pleaseth you to bear me, that my 
part of the trouble is something that troubles you. But, I beseech 
you, let it not. I had before cast my count of danger, want, and 
disgrace ; and, before God, sir, it is true in my heart, the love of the 
cause doth so far overbalance them all, that, with God's grace, they 
shall never make me weary of my resolution. If her Majesty were 
the fountain, I would feat, considering what I daily find, that we 
should wax dry ; but she is but a means whom God useth ; and I 
know not whether I am deceived, but I am faithfully persuaded that 
if she should withdraw herself, other springs would rise to help this 
action : for methinks I see the great work indeed in hand against the 
abusers of the world, wherein it is no greater fault to have confidence 
in man's power, than it is too hastily to despair of God's work. I 
think a wise and constant man ought never to grieve while he doth 
play, as a man may say, his own part truly, though others be out ; 
but if himself leave his hold because other mariners will be idle, he 
will hardly forgive himself his own fault. For me, I cannot promise 
of my own course, because I know there is a higher power that must 
uphold me, or else I shall fall ; but certainly I trust I shall not by 
other men's wants be drawn from myself. Therefore, good sir, to 
whom for my particular I am more boimd than to all men besides, be 
not troubled with my troubles, for I have seen the worst, in my 
judgment, beforehand, and worse than that cannot be. 

" If the Queen pay not her soldiers she must lose her garrisons. 
There is no doubt thereof. But no man living shall be able to say 
the fault is in me. What relief I can do them, I will. I will spare 
no danger if occasion serves. I am sure no creature shall be able to 
lay injustice to my charge ; and for further doubts, truly I stand not 
upon them. I have written by Adams to the Council plainly, and 
therefore let them determine. 

" It hath been a costly beginning unto me this war, by reason I 
had nothing proportioned unto it ; my servants inexperienced, and 
myself every way unfurnished ; biit hereafter, if the war continue, I 
shall pass much better through with it. For Bergen-ap-Zoom, I 



Mtrii. ] TOO NOBLE TO BE UNDERSTOOD. 489 

delighted in it, I confess, because it was near tlie enemy : but espe- 
cially having a very fair house in it, and an excellent air, I destined 
it for my wife ; but, finding how you deal there, and that ill payment 
in my absence thence might bring forth some mischief, and consider- 
ing how apt the Queen is to interpret everything to my disadvantage, 
I have resigned it to my Lord Willoughby, my very friend, and indeed 
a valliant and frank gentleman, and fit for that place ; therefore I 
pray you know that so much of my regality is fallen. I understand 
I am called very ambitious and proud at home, but certainly if they 
knew my heart they would not altogether so judge me. 

" I wrote to you a letter by Will, my Lord of Leicester's jestiug 
I)layer, enclosed in a letter to my wife, and I never had answer 
thereof. It contained something to my Lord of Leicester, and 
counsel that some way might be taken to stay my lady there. I 
since, divers times, have writ to know whether you had received 
them, but you never answered me that point. I since find that the 
knave delivered the letters to my Lady of Leicester, but whether she 
sent them to you, or no, I know not, but earnestly desire to do, 
because I doubt there is more interpreted thereof. Mr. Erington is 
with- me at Flushing, and therefore I think myself at the more rest, 
having a man of his reputation : but I assure you, sir, in good earnest, 
I find Burlas another manner of man than he is taken for, or I 
expected. I would to God, Bourne had obtained his suit. He is 
earnest, but somewhat discomposed with the consideration of his 
estate. Turner is good for nothing, and worst for the sound of the 
hackbuts. 

" We shall have a sore war upon us this summer, wherein if 
appointment had been kept, and these disgraces forborne, which have 
greatly weakened us, we had been victorious. I can say no more at 
this time, but pray for your long and happy life. At Utrecht, this 
24th of March, 1586. 

" Your humble son, 

" Philip Sidney. 

" I know not what to say to my wife's coming till you resolve 
better ; for, if you run a strange course, I may take such an one here 
as will not be fit for any one of the feminine gender. I pray you 
make much of Nicholas Grey. I have been vilely deceived for 
armours for horsemen ; if you could spare me any out of your 
armoury I will send them you back as soon as my own be finished. 
There was never so good a father found a more troublesome son. 



490 A MEMOIR OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. fCriAr. XV. 

Send Sir William Pelham, good sir, and let him have Clerk's place, 
for we need no clerks, and it is most necessary to have such an one 
in the council." * 

Very soon after the receipt of that letter Lady 
Frances did go over to the Netherlands ; and, not- 
withstanding the strange course of affairs, "not fit," 
as her husband thought, " for any of the feminine 
gender/' she enjoyed the turmoil of life in Flushing. 
"Your daughter is very well and merry," wrote Sir 
Philip to Sir Francis, on the 28th of June.f 



* Lodge, Blustrious Personages. 

t The entire letter, of which the original is among the State Paper 
Office MSS. Foreign Correspondence, Holland, vol. xxxiii., is as 
follows ; — 

" Right Honourablb, 

" My cousin. Sir Richard Dyer, is gone home with resolu- 
tion and leave to bring over five hundred men. The gentleman is 
very valiant, and supplies all other things with diligence and desire to 
do well. I beseech you both countenance and favour him. I am 
presently going towards Flushing, where I hear that your daughter 
is very well and merry. I know not how long this letter shall be on 
the way, and therefore I shall no further trouble you at this present, 
but, with my most hearty prayer for your long and happy life. At 
Utrecht, this 28th day of June, 1586. 

" Your humble Son, 

"Ph. SiDJfEY." 

Let this note, written between the last two quoted letters, be read 
in evidence of Sidney's liberality in matters of religion, and of much 
else that is pleasant. It is also addressed to his father-in-law, and is 
to be found in the same collection, vol. xxxii. : — 

" Right Honourable, 

" I send this bearer unto you ; I assure you, sir, one of 
excellent skill, proved by most notable cures he hath done. Yet 
would I not have him dealt with you till he have made proof of others 



if^3i. ] UNPEODUCTIYE WAEFARE. 491 

The " sore wars," of which Sidney had forebodings, 
soon began. Yet the share which he was permitted to 
take in them, highly honourable so far as it went, was, 
in consequence of the jealousies already referred to, 
by no means as large as he desired or deserved. The 
Protestant town of Grave, which he had wished to 
reheve in February, and which was held by the soldiers 
of that day to be " the strongest town in all the Low 
Countries, though but a little one," * was apparently 
rescued on the 6th of April by Count Hohenlo and 
Sir John Norris, who drove off the besieging force sent 
by the Duke of Parma, f "0, that her Majesty knew 
what millions of afflicted people she hath reheved in 
these countries ! " exclaimed Leicester, " this summer, 
this summer, I say, would make an end to her immortal 
glory." J " The English think they are going to do 
great things, and consider themselves masters of the 



there. Only, I beseech you, let him say his judgment thereof. He 
healed Roger Williams in three days, when, for my part, I thought 
he would be dead in three days. He is an Anabaptist in religion, 
which is pity ; for in everything he is honest. Yet still I wish his 
hand and skill be tried with some other. I will now say no more, 
but pray heartily for your long and happy life. At Middelburg, this 
10th of May, 1586. 

' ' Your humble son, 

" Ph. Sxdnet. 

" I am going to the Camp, when, if it please you, to direct your 
letters to Amau. But now I remember me, in some respects I had 
rather they came the Flushing way, for thence they will come maidenly 
to me." 

* Motley, vol. ii. p. 10. 

t Ibid., vol. ii. pp. 11 — 14. 

X Leicester Correspondence, p. 264. 



492 A MEMOIR OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. [Ciur. XV. 

field," wrote Parma.* Nevertheless, the wary Spaniard 
was planning busily, and, although in a bad cause, 
courageously. On the 7th of June the Duke's flag was 
flying upon the topmost tower in Grave, and it was the 
Earl's turn to grow angry and desponding.f Of this 
variable and unsatisfactory sort was the war. 

Meanwhile, Sir Philip Sidney was having other, and 
to him far greater troubles over which to grieve. On 
the 5th of May, at about four o'clock in the morning, 
his father died in the Bishop's Palace at Worcester. 
For seven days, we are told, he had been confined 
to his bed by a sort of cold palsy, the result of incau- 
tiously travelling in a barge from Bewdley to Worcester, 
too soon after an attack of diarrhoea. He wanted 
six weeks of being fifty-seven years old, and during 
six-and-twenty years he had been Lord President of 
Wales, without interruption in his appointment, though 
several times called away to do special work in Ireland 
and elsewhere. At Worcester his body was embalmed, 
the entrails being buried in the Cathedral of that town. 
His heart was transferred to Ludlow, and there interred 
with much pomp on the 21st of June, by the side of 
his daughter Ambrozia.J The rest of his body was 

* Motley, vol. ii. p. 18. 

t Ibid., vol. ii. p. 21. 

X Some time ago, — we are told by Nichols in his Royal Progresses, 
vol. ii. p. 309, — there was fomid in the garden of Edward Coleman, 
Esq., of Leominster, in Herefordshire, a small leaden urn, four 
inches deep, and four inches in diameter at the top, with this inscrip- 
tion : — 

HER . LIH . THE 

HART . OF . SYR 

HENRY . SYDNEY L.P. ANNO 

DOMINI . 1586. 



1586. 
iEt. 31 



;] HIS fathee's death. 493 



entombed at Penshurst. " For his death," wrote 
Edmund MoHneux, his sometime secretary, " there was 
great moan and lamentation, especially by those under 
his government, as having lost that special nobleman, 
whom for courtesy they loved, for justice amongst them 
they highly honoured, and for many other his rare 
gifts and singular virtues they, in his life-time, greatly 
esteemed, and at his death marvellously bemoaned, 
lifting up both hands and hearts to Almighty God, and 
heartily wishing and humbly praying a like might 
succeed in the place as he had been/' '"' 



* HoUinslied, vol. iii. p. 1553. The same loving dependent, in 
his contribution to HoUinshed's work, said much more in praise of 
Sir Henry Sidney. Part of it, concerning his government of Ireland 
and Wales, has been repeated on a former page. A little more may 
be summed up here. In the training of his own mind and body, 
we learn, Sir Henry set an example to all around him. For such 
dispatch as Francis Bacon defined as consisting of " order, and distri- 
bution, and singling out of parts," he was famous. In oratory, we 
are told, he displayed such readiness of speech, such flowing elo- 
quence, such sweet delivery, and such excellent memory, that there 
was rarely his equal. When travelling, all his company, even the 
youngest and healthiest, gave in before he would, though his health 
was broken. But then he was renowned for his moderation in eating 
and drinking, and it is recorded that he never, save when he was ill, 
rested for more than six hours at night, and never slept by day. 
Naturally hot-tempered and placed often in situations especially likely 
to irritate him, he often spoke and wrote angrily, but that was all. 
" My word is my worst," he used to say, " and so they shall find it." 
Nothing ever grieved him more than such unkindness and ingratitude 
as he plentifully received from both Queen and subject, and many of 
his extant letters are full of indignant complainings and even re- 
proaches : but who, knowing the story of his life, can blame him for 
this ? For himself, he made it a grand rule of his conduct, never to 
forsake any one who had once been his friend, never to betray any 
confidence that had at any time been placed in him. 



494 A MEMOIR OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. [Chap. XV. 

Three months later, on the 9 th of August, Sir Phihp 
lost his mother. "During the whole course of her 
sickness," we learn from the authority just cited, " and 
specially a little before it pleased Almighty God to call 
her hence to His mercy, she used such godly speeches, 
earnest and effectual persuasions to all those about her, 
and unto such others as came of friendly courtesy to 
visit her, to exhort them to repentance and amendment 
of life, and dehort them from all sin and lewdness, as 
wounded the consciences and inwardly pierced the 
hearts of many that heard her. And though before 
they knew her to exceed many of her sex in singularity 
of virtue and quality — as good speech, apt and ready 
conceit, excellence of wit, and notable eloquent delivery 
(for none could match her, and few or none come near 
her, either in the good conceit and frame of orderly 
writing, indicting and speedy dispatching, or facility of 
gallant, sweet, delectable, and courtly speaking, at least 
that in this time I myself have known, heard, or read 
of) — yet in this her last action and ending of her Hfe, 
as it were one specially at that instant called of God, 
she so far surpassed herself in discreet, wise, effectual, 
sound, and grounded reasons, all tending to zeal and 
piety, as the same almost astonished the hearers to 
hear and conceive such plenty of goodly and pithy 
matter to come from such a creature ; who, although 
for a time she seemed to the world to live obscurely, 
yet she ended this life and left the world most con- 
fidently, and to God, no doubt, most gloriously, to 
the exceeding comfort of all them, which are not few, 
that loved or honoured her, or the great and renowned 



^1^31.] HIS MOTHEE's death. 495 

house whereof she was descended/' ^' In those words, 
when all deductions have been made on account of the 
proper vehemence of friendly admiration, there is the 
true ring of righteous praise, and the praise is borne 
out bj all the little else that we know concerning 
Lady Mary Sidney. 

While he wept, as he could not have failed to weep, 
at the loss of such noble parents, Sir Philip little thought 
how very near was the end of his own short life. We 
have only to follow him through a few brief, brilliant 
exercises of military skill, and then to go as mourners 
to his grave. 

It seems that in February he had endeavoured, with 
such scanty troops as he could muster, to execute the 
plan he had formed against Steenbergen, in Brabant, 
but a sudden thaw had occurred and so hindered his 
attempt.f A little later the treachery of the enemy 
had rendered abortive a design which he had formed 
against Gravelines, and he could only show his skill in 
saving his party from destruction.^ Not until July had 
he the chance of doing any memorable work in the way 
of active warfare. 

Then, however, he and Count Maurice of Nassau 
found congenial employment in the capture of Axel, a 
strong town in Zealand, a few miles from the southern 
bank of the Scheldt. The scheme started with Maurice, 
who in submitting it to Leicester asked that it might 

* Hollinshed, vol. iii. p. 1553. 
t The Funeral of Sir Philip Sidney (1587). 

X Cotton, MSS, Galba, C ix. fol. 56. Fulke Greville, pp. 136— 
138. 



496 A MEMOIR OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. [Cuap. xv. 

be confided to no one save his friend Sidney. Upon 
Sidney's recommendation, the Earl gave his assent, 
appointing his nephew to take the lead. Three 
thousand foot soldiers made up Sir Philip's little 
army, whereof five hundred were his own band, another 
five hundred being commanded by Lord Willoughby, 
and the rest serving under the Count and some other 
brave young adventurers, of whom one was the son of 
Sir Christopher Hatton. On the night of Tuesday, the 
6th of July, the .volunteers met upon the water, in front 
of Flushing, and thence proceeded very stealthily, first 
by boat and then on foot, to within a mile of Axel. 
Then Sidney summoned his men and addressed to them 
some true-hearted words. He showed them how it 
was God's battle they were fighting, how the welfare 
of their Queen and country in a measure depended 
upon it, how they were contending with the followers of 
a false religion, enemies alike of God and of the true 
Church. They were doing no less than help to quell 
the power of Antichrist, he said, in opposing the 
tyranny of Spain, a nation so lawless and reprobate that 
God had appointed its punishment. He reminded them 
that they were Englishmen, members of a race whose 
bravery had roused the dread and won the praise of the 
whole world : it behoved them to care nothing for 
danger or for death in serving their Queen, in further- 
ing their country's honour, and in aiding a people so 
grievously in want of aid. Moreover, he added, his eje 
was on them, and no one who fought bravely should 
go unrewarded. That speech, we are told, "did so 
link the minds of the people that they did desire 



15S6 
Ml 



31. ] THE CAPTURE OF AXEL. 497 



rather to die in that service than to Hve in the 
contrary/' * 

At two o'clock after midnight the attack was made. 
Some thirty or forty men, headed by Sir Philip 
Sidney, jumped into the ditch, swam warily across, 
scaled the walls, and opened the gate for the rest. The 
sleepy garrison had only time to arm itself and offer 
brave resistance when resistance was too late. By 
placing a band of picked soldiers in the market-place, 
with orders only to move for the sake of giving tem- 
porary aid to any of the straggling companies which 
might be too fiercely opposed by the enemy, Sidney 
ensured strength to every section of his party. Abou^ 
six out of the twelve hundred men set to defend the 
city, besides very many burghers, were slain by the 
sword or pushed into the water. Four citadels were 
taken, and, besides a large quantity of rich spoil, pro- 
perty to the value of two million florins was destroyed. 
Sidney spent ten or twelve days in seeing that everything 
was safe, and that there was no chance of such a re- 
verse as had happened at Grave in the spring, and then, 
leaving eight or nine hundred trustworthy soldiers in 
the garrison, he joined his uncle and the main army at 
Arnheim, having first, out of his own purse, re- 
warded all the finest instances of courage and good 
discipline, t 

* Stowe, p. 733. 

t Hollinshed, vol. iii. p. 1554 ; Fulke Greville, p. 135 ; Leicester 
Correspondence, pp. 337, 338 ; State Paper Office, Foreign Correspond- 
ence, Holland, vol. xxxiv. under dates 8 and 29 July, 1586. Mr. Motley- 
follows a letter of Sir Thomas Cecil's to Ms father, in saying that Sidney 
came last into the town. I have preferred, however, to believe the 

K K 



498 A MEMOIR OP SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. [Chap. xv. 

This capture of Axel was the bravest deed yet done 
by the EngUsh in the Low Countries, and the chief 
honour belonged to Sidney. Great praise justly came 
to him from nearly all quarters. I cannot see what 
the Queen thought of it, but I find that on the 11th 
of July, a few days before the report of the victory 
could have reached London, Sir Francis Walsingham 
wrote to tell the Earl of Leicester of her displeasure at 
his being made a colonel. " She layeth the blame upon 
Sir Philip, as a thing by him ambitiously sought. I see 
her Majesty very apt upon every light occasion to find 
fault with him." ''' 

In the present instance the Queen was angry because 
she had wished this particular colonelcy to have been 
conferred on Count Hohenlo, familiarly called Hollock, 
a man who, not without good points in his character, 
was famous for his drunken habits, and for the vices 
always more or less incident to drunkenness. Meaning 
to act well, he often did great mischief, and of this 
unfortunate tendency, Sidney,— who, if his rival in 
Queen Elizabeth's favour, was always on friendly terms 
with him, — had one very clear illustration. 

Hohenlo, with Sir William Pelham and some other 
friends, had planned a military excursion into Brabant, 
to be made on the 6 th of August, and he invited Sir 
Philip to be of the party. But Sidney, though he 



reports of the Earl of Leicester, who wrote to tlie Queen, " My 
nephew Sidney, with his band, would needs have the fii'st entry," etc. ; 
and to Walsingham, "Your son Philip, with his bands, had the lead- 
ing and entering the town, which was notably performed," etc. 
* Leicester Correspondence, p. 345. 



if 31. ] COUNT HOEENLO. 499 

hurried from Flushing and persuaded Edward Norris 
to accompany him, was too late to share in the sport. 
Perhaps it was well, since nothing was done beyond 
the wanton burning of a village and the killing of some 
boors. He was waiting in Hohenlo's quarters when the 
party returned, and the Count, though glad to see him, 
showed evident dissatisfaction at the presence of his 
friend, the Pelhams and the Norrises being old enemies. 
He invited them all to supper, however, and soon drank 
himself into a quarrelling mood. ISTorris also, knowing 
himself to be an unwelcome guest, was wilHng enough 
for a dispute. Therefore one quickly arose. High 
words passed between the two fiery men, and much 
trouble would have followed, had not Sidney and the 
least boisterous members of the company done their 
best to restore peace.'" 

But Sidney was to do more memorable things in the 
few weeks which he had yet to live. He was at 
Flushing again by the 14th of August.f On that day 

* Motley, vol. ii. pp. 92 — 98, "where the story is very fully 
given. 

t From Flushing, three weeks earlier, he had written to Sir Francis 
Walsingham an interesting letter, illustrating, like some others which 
I have quoted, his anxiety, while serving a noble cause, to be lacking 
in service to no single individual of worth. It is from the State 
Paper Office MSS., Foreign Correspondence, Holland, vol. xxxiv. 

"Right HoisrouRABLE, 

"I know it needless to recommend Mr. Fremin, who hath 
been so long and so well known unto you, yet my good will cannot 
omit, though needlessly, to beseech you to employ your favour towards 
him, since you cannot do it to any man that will better deserve it of 
the public, and of your Honour in particular. My Lord hath written 
him to raise a regiment, in which he means to draw together divers 

K K 2 



600 A MEMOIR OF SIR THILIP SIDNEY. IChap. XV 

he wrote tlirce letters, all very valuable as indicating 
the zeal with which he was serving the cause of the 
Netherlands, while the Queen and her Council at home 
gave painful evidence of the parsimony which did so 
much to lessen their good work. To the Lords of Her 
Majesty's Privy Council he wrote thus boldly and 
eloquently : — 

" Right Honourable arr Singular Good Lords, 

" I send tliis gentleman, Mr. Burnam, humbly to give your 
Lordships to understand the weak store of all sort of necessary muni- 
tion that both this toAvn and the Castle of Ramekins have. These 
States I have tried to the uttermost, but, partly with the opioion it 
more toucheth her Majesty because it is her pawn, but principally 
because they have ever present occasion to employ both all they have 
and indeed much more upon the places nearest to the enemy, we in 
this town, and, as I think, Brill, shall still demand and still go 
without. Therefore I cannot but most humbly lay it before your 
Lordships. By the grace of God, my trust is in Him, that my life 
shall discharge me of blame, but [not] I nor all that be here can per- 
form the services we owe to her Majesty without such merely neces- 
sary things. I will neither speak of the consequence of the place, 
nor of any quantity. Your Lordships can better judge. I do only 
protest to your Honours that I think it very likely we shall have occa- 
sion to use it ; and till then it may be kept by some officer appointed 
by her Majesty, never one graia of it to be used for no services till it 
be for the last point of extremity. There is nothing will keep these 
people in better order than that they see we are strong. I beseech 
your Lordships to consider it according to the weight of the cause, 



friends who be in England. His interest is very good, and none have 
charge on this side who get better reputation for using their soldiers 
than he doth. But I know it superfluous to use more words of him 
to your Honour. This only hath been to testify mine own affection, 
which I will conclude with hearty prayer for your long and happy life. 
At Flushing, this 25th of July, 1586. 

" Your humble son, 

"Ph. Sidney." 



ML 31 ] FLUSHING AIsTD ITS GOVERIS^OR. 501 

and so most humbly take my leave, praying to God to grant your 
Lordships long and happy lives. At Flushing, this 14th of August, 
1586. 

" Tour Lordships' most humbly to be commanded, 

" Ph. Sidney."* 

The second letter, telling the same story in more 

friendly terms, was addressed to Sir Francis Walsing- 

ham : — 

" Right Hoi^ourable, 

" I humbly pray you to confer with Burnam, how I am 
left in this town ; a thing I ever foresaw would be, but could not 
remedy it but from thence where I have often solicited it. I beseech 
you, sir, labour for me, or rather for her Majesty, in it. She need 
be discouraged with nothing while she keeps these principal sea places. 
Nay, I think it were hard to say whether it were not better for us to 
embrace no more, but we do still make camps and straight again mar 
them for want of means, and so lose our money to no purpose 
whereas, if we would gall him, now in Friesland, now in Flanders, he 
should have no leisure to try before hands as he doth. I humbly 
beseech you to favour Burnam, whom I send in this cause, that his 
suit may be obtained, if it be possible. He is one I love exceeding 
well. Ajid so I humbly take my leave, and pray for your long and 
happy life. At Flushing, this 14th of August. 

"Your humble son, 

" Ph. Sidney, "t 

The third letter, written hastily at a later part of 
the day, and by another messenger, was also addressed 
to Sir Francis Walsingham. Intended for the honest 
Secretary's private reading, it contains a more emphatic 
allusion to the Earl of Leicester's worthlessness as a 
general, than I can find that Sidney, plain-spoken as 
he was, elsewhere ventured to make. The mutinous 

* State Paper Office MSS., Foreign Correspondence, Holland, vol. 

XXXV. 

t State Paper Office MSS., Foreign Correspondence, Holland^ vol- 

XXXV. 



502 A MEMOIR OF Sill PHILIP SIDNEY. [Chap. xv. 

disposition of the troops, of which he had evidence on 
this particular night, is often referred to in the cor- 
respondence of the period : — 

" Right Honourable, 

" I most humbly beseech you to favour Captain White, my 
servant ; and as honest a servant as ever I have. To Burnam and him 
I have told my mind in all things. I often craved the treasurer might 
be commanded to pay this place. I assure you, sir, this night we 
"were at a fair plunge to have lost all for want of it. We are now 
four months behind, a thing unsupportable in this place. To complain 
of my Lord of Leicester you know I may not : hut this is the case. If 
once the soldiers fall to a thorough mutiny, this town is lost, in all 
likelihood. I did never think our nation had been so apt to go to 
the enemy as I find them. If this place might possibly have some 
peculiar care of it, it should well deserve it ; for, in fine, this island, 
if once her Majesty would make herself sure of it, is well worth all 
the charge her Majesty hath ever been at in this cause, and all the 
King of Spain's force should never be able to recover it, though all 
the rest were lost, and, without it, should be never able to invade 
England. I have already gotten in a Dutch company at my com- 
mandment, and into camp here, so as with no great matter I could 
make her Majesty sure of this isle, if this town were well provided 
with men and munition. But I leave more discourse to Mr. Burnam ; 
and so I humbly take my leave, praying for your long and happy life. 
At Flushing, this 14th of August, 1586. 

" Your humble son, 

"Ph. Sidney."* 



After his success at Axel, Sidney spent much of 
his time in attendance upon his uncle, and in giving 
advice upon the employment of the army. He was 
at Arnheim at the close of this month of August, 
and on the 30th he went with the Earl to share 



* State Paper Office MSS., Foreign Correspondence, Holland, vol. 

XXXV. 



1586. 
^t. 31. 



] BEFOEE ZUTPHEN. 503 



in the investment of Doesburg, a weak fortress a few 
miles westward on tlie Yssel. Doesburg was itselt 
of no value, but its reduction was important as opening 
up the way to Zutphen ; and upon the capture of that 
town depended the mastery of the Yssel. For this 
Leicester was very anxious. On the 2nd of September 
he gained Doesburg, and on the 4th he 'wrote to Wal- 
singham, saying, — " Zutphen can now little harm us, 
for it is environed on every side/^ ^ 

In the various accounts of the battle of Zutphen there 
are irreconcileable contradictions. Hardly anything is 
clearly traceable ; but about the details of Sidney's 
memorable share in it there is not much confusion. The 
impending struggle in this quarter was on both sides 
reckoned important, and both made great preparations 

* Leicester Correspondetice, Ibid. p. 406. "WTiil-e waiting for the 
attack on Zutphen, Sidney wrote thus to his father-in-law (State 
Paper Office MSS., Foreign Correspondence^ Holland, vol. xxxv.) : — 

" Right Honourable, 

" These only shall be in the most humble and effectual 
manner I can, to desire your thorough friendship to one of the most 
assured friends that I have ever had. It is my Lord Burrow, who, 
by Sir Thomas Cecil's choice, and my Lord the General's very good 
liking, is left by him in his absence Governor of Brill. If sickness or 
other cause stay Sir Thomas in England, then my suit, as earnest as 
I can make for anything, is that he may succeed him. For, it being 
most necessary that some man of very good countenance remain there 
he — both in valour, judgment, and religion, deserving it — should be 
exceedingly disgraced if, being left in it by Sir Thomas, another 
should take it from him. The matter, and my mind, I shall not 
need further to manifest to your Honour, but recommending it, as 
myself, humbly leave you to the protection of the Almighty. At the 
Camp, by Doesburg, this 10th of September, 1586. 

" Your humble son, 

"Ph. Sidney." 



504 A MEMOIR OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. Chap. XV. 

for it. The town was invested on the 13th of Septem- 
ber, Sir John Norris, with Count Lewis WiUiam of 
Nassau and Sir PhiUp Sidney, being appointed to watch 
it from the land, while Leicester himself resolved to 
guard the water. The Duke of Parma, on the other 
hand, laboured hard to stock it with large supplies of 
both men and-food. On the 21st of the month the Earl 
received information that a great quantity of provision 
was at Deventer, a few miles up the river, waiting to 
be smuggled in before daj^-break next morning. He 
resolved that the thing should not be done, and the gar- 
rison apparently expecting his resistance, made suitable 
arrangements for opposing him. Hence arose the battle.* 
The morning of Thursday, the 22nd of September? 
was miserably misty, — so misty, we learn from one au- 
thority, that nothing could be seen ten paces off. f Out 

* Leicester Correspcmdence, p. 414. 

t Ibid. p. 414. Addressed to Sir Francis Walsingham, and dated 
this 22nd of September, though written, I am inclined to think, 
during the previous day or night, is the last letter, sare one, -R-hich I 
am able to quote ; doubtless the last, save two, ever penned by 
Sidney. Its hasty writing, making it in some parts hard to 
decipher, and its slipshod English, add to its value ; showing, as 
they do, how — in the hurry and excitement incident to preparations for 
a battle — Sir Philip Sidney found time for thinking and acting kindly 
on behalf of one of his thousand poor deserving friends. I have 
copied it from the State Paper Office MSS., Foreign Correspondencej 
Holland, vol. xxxvi. : — 

" Right Hoxoukable, 

" This bearer, Pichard Smyth, her Majesty's old servant, 
hath my Lord of Leicester's letters directed unto you, in his favour 
for his ser-sdce to her Majesty, and here withal requesteth mine, hoping 
your Lordship will the rather help him. I beseech you therefore the 
rather at my request to help him, and be the good mean for the 
poor man's preferment, having so long sued, and, now being aged and 



Mtli. ] THE BATTLE OF ZUTPHEIT. 505 

of about ^re hundred Englishmen, it seems that a party 
of two hundred horsemen, with Sidney at their head, 
advanced to the very walls of the town. Then suddenly 
the fog dispersed and the little company found them- 
selves in a very unexpected and very perilous position. 
Above a thousand of the enemy's cavalry were stationed 
in readiness to receive them ; and they were within 
range both of the great guns which played from the 
ramparts and of the still more effective muskets handled 
by troops secreted in the trenches. Yery bravely they 
charged, and then covered their retreat, after an hour- 
and-a-half s hard fighting. Sidney's horse being killed 
under him, he was placed in great danger, and by 
his over -eagerness to appear fearless, the danger was 
much heightened. Having gone into the field stoutly 
armed, as he should be, he had met Sir William Pel- 
ham, the Lord Marshal of the camp, lightly covered 
and, that he might not be outdone, he had thrown off* 
his cuisses. Though thus exposed, he promptly mounted 
a fresh horse and joined in the second charge, shared 
by some new recruits, and as bold and effective as the 
former one. Then there was a third onset, under- 
taken by all the Englishmen who were in the field. 
In the three attacks five hundred slew nearly as many 



weak, hath such need of this or such other good mean for his relief, 
as, without it, he may rest, as I fear, in more misery than the desert 
of so long service requireth. I commend him and his cause to your 
Lordship's good favour and help, and so I humbly take my leave. 
From the Camp at Zutphen, this 22nd September, 1586. 

*' Your humble Son, 

"Ph. Sidney." 



506 A MEMOIR OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. [Chap. XV 

of the enemy as their whole force amounted to, and 
lost about a fourth of their own number. 

In the last charge, Sidney was among the wounded. 
A shot from one of the concealed muskets entered his 
left leg, at some distance above the knee, and, cleaving 
the bone it glanced upwards far into the thigh. His 
new horse, not well trained to battle, took fright and 
galloped off the field ; but the brave rider, though 
bleeding and faint, retained his seat. He was carried 
to the place near which the Earl of Leicester stood. 
Then it was that, overcome with thirst, he called for 
something to drink, i Presently a bottle of water was 
brought, and he hastily put it to his lips. But at that 
moment he saw a poor soldier who was being carried 
past, and the dying man set greedy, ghastly eyes upon 
the precious draught. Sir Philip drank nothing. He 
handed the flask to the soldier, saying as he did so, 
" Thy necessity is yet greater than mine." */ 

" Oh Philip," exclaimed the Earl of -Leicester, who 
had kept himself well out of danger all through the 
morning, " I am truly grieved to see thee I " " Oh, 
noble Sir Philip," cried Sir William Hussel, himself 
bleeding from wounds which he had jast now bravely 
received, and letting manly tears fall upon the weary 
body which he clasped as firmly and tenderly as if he 
had been a lover holding his dying mistress, " Oh, noble 
Sir Philip, never did man attain hurt so honourably or 
serve so vahantly as you ! " f But Sidney modestly 

* Fulke Greville, pp. 143 — 145 ; Leicester Corresjwndencej pp. 414, 
416. 

t Stowe, p. 737. 



15S6 
^t. 51 



;] A DEATH-WOUND KOBLY TAKEN, KOBLY BOENE. 507 



declared that he had done no more than God and Eng- 
land claimed that he should do, and that his life could 
not be more noblj spent than in such service as that 
day's. 

" How God will dispose of him I know not/' wrote 
Leicester next day to Sir Thomas Heneage, " but I must 
needs greatly fear the worst, the blow is so dangerous a 
place and so great* Yet did I never hear of any man 
that did abide the dressing and setting of his bones 
better than he did. I would you had stood by to hear 
his most loyal speeches to her Majesty, his constant 
mind to the cause, his loving care over me, and his 
most resolute determination for death ; not a jot 
appalled for his blow, that is the most grievous that 
ever I saw with such a bullet ; riding so long, a mile 
and a-half, upon his horse ere he came to the Camp ; 
not ceasing to speak still of her Majesty, being glad if 
his hurt and death might any way honour her ; for 
hers he was whilst he hved, and God's he was sure to 
be if he died ; prayed all men to think that the cause 
was as well her Majesty's as the Countries', and not to 
be discouraged — ' for you have now such success as may 
encourage us all, and this my hurt is the ordinance of 
God by the hap of war.' " * 

In that temper, after receiving such temporary rehef 
as surgeons could give, the wounded soldier was con- 
veyed in his uncle's barge to Arnheim, quitting for 
ever the battle-field in which he had seemed about to 
work so bravely. The war was waged without him, 

* Colliiis, Introduction to the Sidney Papers, p. 105. 



508 A MEMOIR OF SIR PITILIP SIDNEY. [Chap, x 

and, after a time, without the Earl of Leicester, whose 
inefficient management damaged the Protestant cause, 
and brought him into disfavour with the States which 
had begun by idohzing him. The bickerings between 
the EngUsh and the Netherlanders, and the consequent 
weakness in conducting the warfare, mainly chargeable 
upon Leicester, encouraged King Philip of Spain to 
undertake the invasion of England, and the Armada 
fight was the result. Had Sidney lived to take part in 
it, a new glory might have been added to his honoured 
name : but he died twenty months too soon. 



CHAPTER XVI. 



SICKNESS AND DEATH. 
1586. 

For five-and-twenty days Sir Philip Sidney lay at 
Arnheim in the house of a lad}^, named Gruitthueis- 
sens.* We are told that in the hearts of the preachers 
and physicians who attended him, he caused great won- 
derment. The former marvelled at his rare godUness ; 
the latter, at his strange courage and patience. 

When the surgeons came to him, he charged them 
•freely to cut and search to the bottom of his wound. If 
they would do that and cure him, he said, he would bear 
all the pain with readiness, and would reward them to 
his utmost : if, on the other hand, their ignorance or 
overtenderness led them astray, they must remember 
that such kindness would be a cruelty to him and a dis- 
credit to themselves. "With love and care well mixed," 
it is written, " they began the cure, and continued it 
some sixteen days, with such confidence of his recovery 
as the joy of their hearts overflowed their discretion, 
and made them spread the intelligence of it to the 
Queen and all his noble friends in England, where it 
was received, not as private, but as pubhc news." f 

* Archceologia, vol. xxviii. p. 35. 

t Stowe, p. 737 ; Fulke Greville, pp. 165, 166. 



510 A MEMOIR OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. [Chap. XVI. 

The fourth day after the disaster, at two o'clock in 
the morning, the sufferer fell for the first time into a 
sound sleep. " My hope is now very good,'' said the 
Earl of Leicester, — who, when we have blamed him for 
his numerous faults and numberless follies, must be 
thought kindly of for a certain love which all life long 
he had had for his nephew, and which was now 
especially apparent, — in a letter to Sir Francis Wal- 
singham.'""" On the 2nd of October he wrote again, 
saying, " All the worst days be passed, as both surgeons 
and physicians have informed me, and he amends as 
well as is possible in this time, and he himself finds it, 
for he sleeps and rests well, and hath a good stomach 
to eat, without fear or distemper at all. I thank God 
for it."t 

But if the patient sometimes shared the hopes of 
physicians and friends, he was soonest undeceived. 
Indeed, from the very first he seems to have rightly 
understood his condition. On being removed from the 
battle-field, he was heard to whisper thanks to God for not 
taking him at once, but rather leaving him a little time 
for self-examination and preparation for death.J On the 
last day of September he sent for his friend George 
Gilford, an excellent divine and a famous preacher. 
A short memoir written by this visitor gives us some 
interesting information respecting the circumstances of 
Sidney's death-bed. " The guilt of sin," he recorded, 

* Leicester Correspondence, p. 415. f Ibid. p. 422. 

t Cotton MSS., Yitellius, C. xvii. fo. 382. The disastrous fire 
which ruined so many of the Cottoniau MSS. has damaged this one. 
It has been printed by Zouch. 



Mt^lt ] SPIEITUAL COMFORT AND EESOLUTION. 511 

" the present beholding of death, the terror of God's 
judgment seat, which seemed in hot displeasure to cut 
him down, concurring, did make a fear and astonish- 
ment in his mind, which he did overcome after con- 
ference had, touching both the doctrine and the example 
of the Scripture in that matter, where it was proved 
unto him that the great servants of God were astonished 
with horror and fear of God's wrath in their private 
afflictions ; otherwise how should they be taught obe- 
dience and reverence to stand in awe of their Father '? 
how should they be made conformable to Christ in 
suffering, if they should feel no terrors of God's wrath 
in their soul for sin 1 After such serious conversations 
on the design of God in afflicting the children of men, 
with great cheerfulness he did often lift up his eyes and 
hands, giving thanks to God that He did chastise him 
with a loving and fatherly coercion and to his infinite 
profit, whether the soul live or die. Being advertised 
that David and other holy men of God in time of their 
extreme danger, did call to God for help, and solemnly 
vowed to set forth the praises of God when He should 
dehver them, and that it were very good he should do 
the like, — that is, to vow with an unfeigned heart and 
full purpose, if God should give him life, to consecrate 
the same to His service, and to make His glory the 
mark of all his actions, — to this he answered, in words 
expressive of his unfeigned repentance, and of his firm 
resolution not to live as he had done ; for, he said, he 
had walked in a vague course. And these words he 
spake with great vehemence, both of speech and of 
gesture, and doubled it, to the intent that it mioht be 



512 A MEMOIK OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. [Chap xvi 

manifest how unfcignedly he meant to turn more 
thoughts unto God than ever before. 

" Continuing thus certain days/^ the narrative pro- 
ceeds, " very desirous of conference out of the Holy 
Scriptures, he requested that some goodly book might 
be gotten to read unto him, which might, as he said, 
increase mortification, and confirm his mind. He did 
also sundry times complain that his mind was dull in 
prayer, and that his thoughts did not ascend up so 
quick as he desired. For, having before in manful sort 
entreated the Lord with fervent prayer, he thought he 
should at all times feel that fervency, and was grieved 
when he found any thought interrupting the same ; — 
and for the power of God's Word how great knowledge 
is there,^ said he, ' and how little do men feel the power 
and working which is inward.' 

" At another time, lying silent, of a sudden he brake 
forth into expressions denoting his sense of the wretched- 
ness of man, ' a poor worm,' of the mercies of 'God, of 
the dispensations of Providence, that reacheth unto all 
things. And this he did with vehement gesture and 
great joy, even ravished with the consideration of God's 
omnipotency, providence, and goodness ; of whose 
fatherly love, in remembering to chastise him for his 
good, he now felt, adding, how unsearchable the mys- 
teries of God's Word are."* 

In thoughts like these Sir Philip Sidney found happi- 
ness on his bed of pain. We are told that, among other 
occupations, he gave utterance to his sentiments in a 

* Cotton MSS., Yitellius, C. xvii. fo. 382. 



it 31. ] WATCHEES BY THE BED OF PAIN. 513 

short poem, entitled La Cuisse Rompue, also that he 
wrote to Belarius, a learned divine with whom he was 
acquainted, " a large epistle, in very pure and eloquent 
Latin," a copy of which, "for the excellency of the 
phrase and the pithiness of the matter," was trans- 
mitted to Queen Elizabeth.* No copy of either pro- 
duction remains for us to read. 

As soon as she heard of his disaster, his wife, though 
far advanced in pregnancy, hurried to attend upon 
him at Arnheim. Having, as we have seen, quitted 
England to share his company, in the spring, she had 
probably been residing constantly at Flushing, where he 
was with her when not engaged in some military project. 
But, wherever she had been before, we know that she 
was with him now, nursing him with all womanly and 
wifely tenderness, and without regard for her own 
perilous position. f 

Nor were there wanting other anxious watchers by 
his bedside, or expressions of sympathy from those who 
were absent. His brother Robert, to whom he had 
assigned the government of Rammekins, who had served 
with him at Zutphen and elsewhere, and who was 
already winning fame by reason of his bravery and 
warlike skill, was with him as often as he could be 
spared, and coiJstantly when the real nature of the 
catastrophe was known. J Thomas, the youngest of the 
three brothers, who was likewise finding employment 
in the Low Countries, must also have been a fre- 

* Hollinshed, vol. iii. p. 1555. 

t Leicester Correspondence, pp. 430, 445. 

X Ibid, passim. 



511' A MEMOIR OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. [CtiAP. xvi. 

quent visitor at Arnlieim. The Earl of Leicester, more- 
over, went thither whenever he could, to express the 
real grief he felt at his nephew's trouble, and to 
offer such words of kindlj-meant though hollow com- 
fort as none so well as he knew how to use.* The 
Queen, very soon after receiving intelligence of the 
battle and its results, sent a messenger with comforting 
letters, written by her own hand, and bidding him re- 
turn immediately with full information respecting the 
noble sufferer's health, and the chances of his recovery. f 
Count Hohenlo is one of the friends mentioned as 
showing an especial interest in Sir Philip. He had 
himself received a severe musket wound in his neck, 
but when he heard of Sidney's danger, he generously 
sent his own favourite surgeon to attend upon the man 
whom he heartily admired, notwithstanding the reproof 
and the opposition which he had several times received 
from him. One day the surgeon returned to dress his 
master's wound. " How is Sir Philip V eagerly in- 
quired the Count. The surgeon, more discerning than 
many of his companions in leechcraft, answered with a 
heavy countenance, that things were not going on well 
with him. " Away, villain !" were the unexpected words 
which Hohenlo, in the true tone of a drunkard's gene- 
rosity, thundered at him : " Away, and never see my 
face again till thou bring better news of that man's 
recovery, for whose redemption many such as I were 
happily lost 1" J 

^ Leicester Corres;pondence, passim. 

t Ibid. p. 438. 

X Fulke GreviUe, pp. 147, 148. 



1586. 



Ji. ] THE APPKOACH OF DEATH. 515 



Gradually it became apparent to all that things were 
going anything but well with Sir Phihp. But they were 
very loth to think so. On the 6th of October, Leicester 
wrote to tell Walsingham that he was better than ever. 
" He feeleth no grief now but his long lying, which he 
must suffer."* That suffering, however, meant death, 
and the Earl, in saying that his nephew felt no grief, 
showed only that he perceived expression of none. 
Sidney's pains were really more acute than ever. They 
came more fitfully, and with token of more vital malady. 
In such rehef as he had he saw symptoms of decay 
rather than of recovery. He patiently submitted him- 
self to the surgeons' applications and posturings, although 
his very shoulder-bones were worn through the skin 
from lying in one fixed position ; but he had very little 
hope.f 

Soon hope left him altogether. One morning, about 
the 8th of October, while he was lifting up the sheets 
in hope of easing his wearied body, he smelt a strange 
and noisome savour about him, something very different, 
as he perceived, from the oils and salves to which he 
had grown accustomed. This he guessed to be the 
commencement of mortification in his limbs ; and so — 
notwithstanding the loving contradictions of his friends, 
and the learned arguments of his physicians — it proved. 
From that moment he felt sure of his approaching 
death.J 

He did not fear to die, he said. " I have bound 

* Leicester Correspondence, p. 429. 
t Fulke Greville, p. 149, 



Ibid. pp. 149, 150. 



L L 2 



516 A MEMOIR OF SIR PlIILir SIDNEY. [Chap. xvi. 

my life to God, and if the Lord cut me off and suffer 
me to live no longer, then I shall glorify Him and give 
up myself to His service/' Yet he was afraid that the 
pangs of his death might be so grievous that he should 
lose his mental vigour before the mere life was gone ! 
and this fhought greatly, troubled him.* But he knew 
how to reheve himself from this and every other trouble. 
He called into his presence all the ministers who were 
in attendance upon him, men of very contradictory 
opinions upon many minor matters, but one in their 
wish to guide this brave soul most happily to Heaven. 
" Before them," we are informed, " he made such a 
confession of the faith as no book, but the heart, can 
feelingly disclose." Then he asked them to accompany 
liim in prayer, and, to the surprise of many, desired 
their leave that he should himself conduct the service ; 
seeing, he said, that the secret sins of his heart were 
best known to himself, and that no one was so able as 
he was to draw down the precise blessings of which he 
stood in greatest need. And he did pray, with words 
so earnest and eloquent, that the whole company was 
stirred. Sighs and tears often interrupted their joint 
devotions ; " yet could no man judge whether the 
wrack of heavenly agony, whereupon they all stood, 
were forced by sorrow for him or by admiration of 
him.^'f 

During these last days his talk was more than ever 
about celestial things. A favourite topic with him was 
the immortality of the soul. He aimed, in the con- 

* Cotton, MSS., ViteUius, C. xvii. 
t Fulke Gre\dUe, pp. 151, 152. 



if 3]. ] A STEONG SOUL IN A WEAK BODY. 517 

versation, first, to see what true knowledge the soul 
retains in her own essence, and what independent light 
is shed by her, as in the writings of Plato, Aris- 
totle, Cicero, Zoroaster, and others ; and then to com- 
pare it with the more pregnant authority of the 
Sacred Volume, through which shone clearly and 
brightly the Divine light. He discussed these themes, 
said his friend, "not that he wanted instruction or 
assurance, but because this fixing of a lover's thoughts 
upon those eternal beauties was not only a cheering 
up of his decaying spirits, but, as it were, a taking 
possession of that immortal inheritance which was 
given unto him by his brotherhood in Christ.'' * 

Soon it was plain to everyone that he must quickly 
die. He stedfastly declared himself ready and very 
anxious, since thus his earthly pains would be over 
and his heavenly joys would be commenced. But he 
did not forget the duty of holding life as long as he 
could. On the evening of Sunday, the 16th of October, 
after he had been ill for twenty-four days, he suddenly 
raised himself in his bed, and resting his elbow on the 
pillow, called for a piece of paper. Then, animated 
perhaps by a new hope, he wrote this touching Httle 
note to his friend, John Wier, the chief physician of 
the Duke of Cleves, and the famous pupil of Cornehus 
Agrippa : — " Mi Wiere, veni, vent. Be vita periclitor 
et te ciipio. Nee viviis, nee mortims, ero ingratus. 
Plura 72^n possum, sed ohni^^ oro ut festines. Vale, 
Tuus Ph. Sidney." f 

* Fulke Greville, p. 153. 

t HoUinshed, vol. iii. p. 1555. Archceologia, vol. xxviii. p. 38-. 



518 A MEMOIR OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. [Chap, x VI. 

But death came more quickly than the physician. 
Before day-break on Monday, George Gifford walked 
gently to tlie bedside, and asked Sidney how he did. 
" I feel myself more weak," he answered. " I trust,'' 
said the minister, "you are well and thoroughly pre- 
pared for death, if God shall call you.'' Sidney was 
silent for a time, and looked perplexed. " I have a 
doubt," he said, at length ; " pray resolve me in it. I 
have not slept this night. I have very earnestly and 
humbly besought the Lord to give me some sleep ; 
but He hath denied it. This causeth me to doubt 
that God doth not regard me, nor hear any of my 
prayers." In a few wise, simple Tvords, Gifford ex- 
plained how, upon all matters touching salvation and 
the eternal life, the Creator had given an absolute 
promise that He would hear and answer every prayer 
of His creatures ; but for things of this life, the pro- 
mise was only conditional : for His knowledge of what 
was right was far clearer than any human being's : 
had not the Saviour himself been driven, in unspeak- 
able anguish, to say, " Nevertheless, not as I will, but 
as Thou wilt ^ " There was a smile on Sir Philip's face 
as he said, "I am fully satisfied and resolved with 
this answer. No doubt it is even so. I will submit 
myself to His will in these outward things." But his 
difficulty could not be altogether removed. After 
another pause, he whispered, " I had this night a 
trouble in my mind : for, searching myself, npethought 
I had not a full and sure hold of Christ. After I had 
continued in this perplexity awhile, how strangely God 
did deliver me ! for it was a strange deliverance which 



^fc.3i.] THE LAST DAY UPON EARTH. 519 

I had. There came to my mind a vanity in which I 
dehghted, whereof I had not rid myself. I rid myself 
of it, and presently my joy and comfort returned." ''^ 

Perhaps the vanity of which the recollection afflicted 
this gentle spirit was the clinging to life, and the 
seeking of it through human aid, evinced in his letter 
to Wier. At any rate, he now seemed quite resigned 
to his approaching dissolution. He was told that he 
must not expect to live many hours longer. " I know 
it," he said ; " I know it.^' But the old fear, of losing 
his vigour of mind, came back. " I do with trembling- 
heart, and most humbly intreat the Lord," he declared, 
" that the pangs of death may not be so grievous as to 
take away my understanding." Yet after Gilford had 
tendered another of his comforting speeches, showing 
how all things were to be left in the hands of a Euler 
whose love and wisdom were ahke infinite, he lifted 
up his eyes and hands, and exclaimed with emphasis, 
"I would not change my joy for the empire of the 
world." t 

Presently he called for the will which he had 
indicted on the 30th of September, and having care- 
fully heard it read over, he added a codicil, rich in 
indication of his generous disposition. The whole 
document, according to the true judgment of his friend 
Fulke Greville, " will ever remain for a witness to the 
world that those sweet and large, even when dying, 
affections in him, could no more be contracted with 
the narrowness of pain, grief, or sickness, than any 

* Cotton. MSS., VitelHus, C. xvii. t Ibid. 



520 A MEMOIR OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. [CuakXVI. 

sparkle of our immortality can be buried in the 
shadow of death." "' 

In this will, after the customary preamble, in which 
Sir Philip Sidney bequeathed his soul to God and his 
body to the grave, he made arrangements for the dis- 
posal of the property of which, owing to his father's 
death, he had five months before become the owner. 
His wife. Lady Frances Sidney, was, during her life- 
time, to receive half the income arising out of all his 
manors, lands, tenements, rights, and reversions. Four 
thousand pounds were to be set apart as a portion for 
his infant daughter Ehzabeth, besides suitable pro- 
vision being made for her education and maintenance 
until such time as she might be married. Land to 
the value of a hundred pounds a year, selected from 
any part of his estates except Penshurst, was to be 
accorded to his brother, Thomas. All the rest of the 
present income, save certain other small bequests, and 
the reversion of the whole property, was assigned to the 
elder brother, Robert. 

Of the numerous minor bestowments made by Sir 
Philip, some claim to be noticed as illustrations of his 
temper, and of the esteem in which he held his various 
friends and kindred. To his uncles, the Earls of 
Leicester and Warwick, and to his wife's parents. Sir 
Francis and Lady Walsingham, he left a hundred 
pounds apiece, to be taken in money, or, better, in some 
jewel or other article which could last as a memento of 
him. For his aunt, the Countess of Sussex, another 

* Fulke Greville, p. 158. 



it3i. ] THE LAST BUSINESS UPON EARTH. 521 

aunt's husband, the Earl of Huntingdon, and his 
brother-in-law, the Earl of Pembroke, he desired that 
three gold rings, set with large diamonds, and all 
exactly alike, might be fashioned. To his friend. Sir 
Wilham Russel, he bequeathed his best suit of armour ; 
to Edward Dyer and Fulke Greville, all his books ; to 
Edward Wotton, an annual present of a buck from 
Penshurst ; and to many other friends he left httle 
legacies of the same sort. Every servant was remem- 
bered, from the old and faithful attendant. Griffin 
Madox — whom we saw going with Sidney to France, 
Germany, and Italy, in 1572, and the following years, 
and who had ever since been acting as his faithful 
steward, — to whom he assigned an annuity of forty 
pounds a year, to some who were to receive simple 
presents of five pounds apiece. To the surgeons and 
divines who were waiting upon him during this his last 
illness, a gift of twenty pounds apiece was to be made. 
Moreover, it was written, " I will and absolutely 
authorize the Right Honourable Sir Francis Walsing- 
ham, and my brother, Eobert Sidney, or either of them, 
to sell so much of my lands as shall pay all my debts, 
as well those of my father deceased as of mine own, 
beseeching them to hasten the same, and to pay the 
creditors with all possible speed, according to that 
letter of attorney which Sir Francis Walsingham 
already hath, sealed and subscribed by me to that end ; 
which letter of attorney I do hereby ratify and confirm, 
so far forth as concerneth for that purpose to all efiect 
of law.'' -'^ 

* Collins, Introduction to the, Sidney Papers, pp. 109 — 113, 



522 A MEMOIR OF SIR THILIP SIDNEY. [Chap. xvi. 

This final business being completed, Sir Philip Sidney 
requested that the ode, which he had "written two or 
three weeks ago, might be chanted to him for the last 
time. Then during three or four hours he at intervals 
conversed upon matters proper to the occasion. As 
long as he could speak without pain he talked freely, 
propounding any difficulties that occurred to him, and 
discussing anything which was said by others, and to 
which he could not agree. Whenever there was a long 
silence, he said, "I pray you speak to me still," or 
words to that effect. " In the midst of these speeches,'' — 
wrote Gifford, " which were for the company of faith to 
gather an assurance of God's law touching the vanity of 
this life, the victory of Christ over death, the glory 
which the body shall have at the resurrection, and that 
present felicity which the soul shall be admitted to by 
the holy angels — as the light of a lamp is continued 
by pouring in of oil, so he sought to have the burning 
zeal and flame of his prayer, unto which his heart 
was still bent, cherished by the comforts of the 
Holy Word, accounting it a great injury if we did not 
seek to give wings to his faith, to carry up his 
prayers speedily, uttering grief when he felt any 
thought interrupting him. And, although he had pro- 
fessed the Gospel, loved and favoured those that did 
embrace it, entered deeply into the concerns of the 
Church, taken good order and very good care for 
his family and soldiers to be instructed and to be 
brought to live accordingly, yet, entering into deep 
examination of his life, now in the time of his afflic- 
tion, he felt those inward motions and workings of a 



if 31 J LOOKING FOEWARDS AND BACKWARDS. 523 

spirit exciting him to a deep sorrow for his former 
conduct.'^ '" 

One of the company spoke of the comfort which 
godly men were wont to feel, at the hour of death, 
from recalling those passages of their lives in which 
God had helped them to work most purely and most to 
the enlargement of His glory. " It is not so with me,*' 
answered Sir Philip, " I have no comfort that way. 
All things in my former life have been vain, vain, 
vain."f 

Most vain of all, as it seemed to this brave man, 
standing upon the edge of eternity and looking sted- 
fastly at the things of Heaven, was his Arcadia, a work 
mainly devoted to the fictitious presentment of earthly 
love. Turning to one of the friends near him, he bade 
him collect all the scattered leaves of the manuscript, 
and consign them to the flames. " What promise his 
friend returned herein is uncertain," said he who told 
the tale ; " but if he brake his word to be faithful to the 
public good, posterity will absolve him, without doing 
any penance, for being guilty of such a meritorious 
ofience, whereby he hath obliged so many ages.'' J 

About noon he became visibly weaker, and at the 
thought of so quickly losing him for ever, those who 
loved him most could not suppress their grief. Loudest 
of all in the utterance of his affliction was Robert 
Sidney. Very touching was the contrast between 
those two loving brothers, " the weaker showing infinite 

^ Cotton. M8S., Yitellius, C. xvii. 

+ Ibid. 

X The Life and Death of Sir Philip Sidney. 



524 A MEMOIR OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. [Chap xvi. 

strength in suppressing sorrow, and the stronger infinite 
weakness in expressing it." But the concealed struggle 
of affection, augmented by the earnest words which he 
heard, was too much for the dying man. He desired 
his brother to leave him, after his hand, pale and flesh- 
less, had for the last time been clasped with the other's. 
" Love my memory,'' he said, in parting, " cherish my 
friends : their faith to me may assure you they are 
honest. But, above all, govern your will and affections 
by the will and word of your Creator ; in me beholding 
the end of the world with all her vanities." ''^ 

Those seem to have been about the last words uttered 
by him. He sank down upon his pillow, quite 
exhausted. His eyes closed. His cold hands lay as if 
lifeless, just where they had chanced to fall. The 
curdhng blood appeared hardly to flow through its 
channels. His friends thought that his former fear 
had been realized, that his understanding had left him, 
and that it was useless for them to speak to him any 
more. But it was far otherwise. "Sir," said Gifford, 
after a pause, " if you hear what I say, let us by some 
means know it, and, if you have still your inward joy 
and consolation in God, hold up your hand." Imme- 
diately the hand which they had thought powerless, 
and in which they would have been content to see the 
slightest bend of recognition, was lifted up and held 
out, for a little while, at full length ; a circumstance, 
we are told, which caused the beholders to cry out 
with delight, that his understanding should still be so 

* Fulke GreviUe, p. 159. 



1586. 
^t. 31 



. ] THE END. 525 



perfect, and that liis weak body should give such clear 
and ready token of the joy of his soul. ''' 

A little later, at about two o'clock in the afternoon of 
this memorable Monday, the 17th of October,t his 
friends asked him for a fresh token of his mental power 
and spiritual confidence. Could he show them that he 
was still leaning in prayerful trust upon God's mercy ? 
He could not speak, he could not open his eyes to look 
upon them : but straightway he raised both his hands 
and set them together on his breast and held them, with 
joined palms and fingers pointing upwards, after the 
manner of those who make humble, earnest petition to 
the Most High. But he had not strength, if he had the 
will, to remove them. The watchers saw that they 
were becoming stiff and chill with death. So they 
gently placed them by his side. After a few minutes 
more he had ceased to breathe.;[: 

One of the purest and noblest spirits that ever 
animated flesh had gently, bravely passed from earth 
to Heaven. One of the fairest and comeliest bodies ever 
shaped to be the beautiful mansion of a godlike mind 
was empty, waiting to be committed to the safe keeping 
of the grave's darkness and corruption, till summoned 
to come forth clothed in light and endowed with in- 
corruptibility, fit tenement for the soul, renewed and 
exalted, which had quitted it for a time. 

"Sir," wrote the Earl of Leicester to Sir Francis 
Walsingham, on the 25th of October, " the grief I have 

* Cotton. MSS., Vitellius, C. xvii. 
t Hollinshed, vol. iii. p. 1555. 
:|: Cotton, MSS., Vitellius, C. xvii. 



520 A MEMOIR OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. [CirAP. xvi. 

taken for the loss of mj dear son and yours, would not 
suffer me to write sooner of those ill news unto you, 
specially being in so good hope, so very little time 
before, of his good recovery. But he is with the Lord, 
and His will must be done. What perfection he was 
born unto, and how able he was to serve Her Majesty 
and his country, all men here almost wonder. For 
mine own part I have lost, beside the comfort of my 
life, a most principal stay and help in my service here, 
and, if I may say it, I think none of all hath a greater 
loss than the Queen's Majesty herself Your sorrowful 
daughter and mine is here with me at Utrecht till she 
may recover some strength, for she is wonderfully over- 
thrown through her long care since the beginning of 
her husband's hurt ; and I am the more careful that 
she should be in some strength ere she take her journey 
into England, for that she is with child, which, I pray 
God send to be a son, if it be His will ; but, whether 
son or daughter, they shall be my children too.^'* It 
seems, however, that neither son nor daughter came 
into the world alive. Lady Frances Sidney's wifely 
zeal had interfered with her motherly responsibilities, 
and her child, as we are to infer, was still-born. " The 
Lord hath inflicted us with sharpness," said Leicester 
in another letter. f 

I might fill many pages with rehearsal of the grief 
and sympathy aroused by Sir Philip Sidney's death. 
Queen Elizabeth, when she heard of it, we are told, was 
overwhelmed with sorrow. She deplored the loss not 

* Leicester Correspondence, pp. 445, 446. 
t Ibid. p. 480. 



158G.] LAMENTATION. 527 

only of the worthiest ornament of her Court, but also of 
the ah^eady famous Governor of Flushing. In the hour of 
her trouble, she declared she had no one left who could 
so persistently and successfully carry on the war against 
the Spanish monarch.*"^ That opinion seems to have 
been very general among both friends and foes. Men- 
doza, the Secretary of King Philip, himself, is stated 
to have said that, though he was glad his master had 
lost, in this private gentleman, a leading enemy to 
his estate, yet he could not but lament to see Chris- 
tendom deprived of so rare a light in those cloudy times, 
and that poor widowed England, having been many 
years breeding one eminent spirit, was in a moment 
bereaved of him.f Fortunately England had not a 
few other eminent spirits, now bred and breeding ; 
but her bereavement of this one was not, on that 
account, less grievous. 

Meanwhile the hero's corpse was waiting for burial. 
On Monday, the 24th of October, having been suitably 
embalmed, it was removed from Arnheim to Sidney's own 
house at Flushing, there to remain for eight days. On 
the 1st of November it was conveyed to the water's 
edge, followed by twelve hundred of the English 
soldiers, walking by threes and threes, and trailing 
their swords and muskets in the dust, and by all the 
burghers of the town. As they proceeded, solemn 
music was performed. Rounds of small shot were 
thrice fired by all the men present, and from the great 
ordnance on the walls two volleys were discharged as 

* Leicester Correspondence^ pp. 451, 452. 
t Zouch, p. 285. 



528 A MEMOIR OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. ICi.Ar xvr 

tlie body was taken from the shore. It was placed in 
the Black Prince, a pinnace of Sir Philip Sidney's own, 
its sails, tackle, and other furniture being all of black 
stuff, and was accompanied by several other vessels in 
mourning.'"' 

The people of the Netherlands were very loth to part 
with the remains of him whom they had learned greatly 
to love while he was alive. The States entreated that 
the honour of his burial might be conferred upon them : 
if so, they would pledge themselves, they averred, to 
erect for him as fair a monument as had ever been 
set up for any King or Emperor in Christendom ; 
" yea, though the same should cost half-a-ton of gold 
in the building.'^f But England claimed the prize. 

On Friday, the 5th of November, the mournful cargo 
was landed at Tower Hill on the Thames, and thence 
conveyed to a house in the Minories, there to stay for 
more than three months before interment.;]: The reason 
for this unusual delay is very curious. " Sir Philip 
Sidney hath left a great number of* poor creditors," 
wrote Walsingham to Leicester, on this 5th of November. 
" What order he hath taken by his will for their satis- 
faction I know not. It is true that immediately after 
the death of his father he sent me a letter of attorney 
for the sale of such portion of land as' might content his 
creditors, when there was nothing done before his death. 
I have paid, and must pay for him about six thousand 
pounds, which I do assure your Lordship hath brought 

* T/ie Funeral of Sir Philip Sidney (1587). Stowe, p. 739. 
t HoUinslied, vol. iii. p. 1555 ; Fiilke Greville, p. 165. 
X The Funeral of Sir Philip Sidney. 



1586-1587.] WAITING FOE BURIAL. 529 

me into a most desperate and hard state, which I weigh 
nothing in respect of the loss of the gentleman who was 
my chief worldly comfort."* We have seen how Sidney, 
in preparing his will, had taken very loving care of all his 
own and his father's creditors. But when the document 
reached England, there was found to be a legal difficulty 
in its execution, owing to the son's death having followed 
so very quickly upon the father's. " I have caused Sir 
Philip Sidney's will to be considered of some gentlemen 
learned in the law," Walsingham said in another letter, 
" and I find the same imperfect touching the sale of his 
land for the satisfying of his poor creditors ; which, I 
assure your Lordship, doth greatly afflict me, that a 
gentleman that hath lived so unspotted a reputation, 
and had so great cares to see all men satisfied, should 
be so exposed to the outcry of his creditors. This hard 
estate of this noble gentleman maketh me stay to take 
order for his burial until your Lordship return. I do 
not see how the same can be performed, with that 
solemnity that appertaineth, without the utter undoing 
of his creditors, which is to be weighed in conscience."! 
Therefore the funeral was postponed until February, 
1587. By that month either the lawyers' hindrance 
had been overcome, or, as is more probable. Sir Francis 
Walsingham had saved money enough to pay the ex- 
penses out of his own purse. It was the common 
thought of people at the time, that the thing was done 
at his individual cost, and purely out of love for his son- 

* Leicester Correspondence, pp. 453, 454. 
•t Ibid., pp. 456, 457. 



530 A MEMOIR OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. LChap. xvi. 

in-law's memory.* At any rate we may be sure that the 
ceremony was honestly paid for ; and it was a more 
splendid ceremony, perhaps, than had ever yet been 
performed in honour of any Enghsh subject. 

Thursday, the 16th of February, 1587, was the day 
of Sidney's burial, four months all but a day, after his 
death. No pains and no expense were spared to make 
the pageant worthy of the hero. Upwards of seven 
hundred mourners took rank in the funeral procession, 
which contained representatives of every class of English 
life, duly betokening the grief felt by all England. Two 
and thirty poor men, one for every year of Sidney's 
life, led the way, in long mourning gowns, their short hats 
being pressed tightly over their heads and long staves 
being in their hands. Next walked six infantry officers 
in undress, followed by two sergeants, with short coats 
and halberds hanging down ; by two fifers and two 
drummers, who played very soft, and slow, and solemn 
music ; by a youth dragging through the dust an ensign 
embroidered with stars and marked with the motto. 
Semper eadem ; and lastly by a lieutenant of foot, with 
his truncheon reversed. Next came some officers of 
Sidney's horse, two corporals, and four trumpeters, belted, 
booted, and spurred, but with their truncheons also 
reversed, with the standard of the regiment, on which 
was the inscription Pulclirum propter se, trailing upon 
the ground, and -v^ith the baton of its lieutenant also 
pointed downwards. Then two ushers appeared, pre- 
ceding a more splendid part of the spectacle. An 

* The Funeral of Sir Philip Sidney. 



1587.J GOmQ TO BURIAL. 551 

uplifted standard, showing the cross of St. G-eorge, 
the Sidney crest of a porcupine, collared and chained, 
between three crowned lions' heads, and Sir Philip's 
own device Vi^ ea nostra voco, w^as borne by Mr. 
E-ichard Gwynne, dressed in a long black cloak, and 
with a tight hood, fitting in front so as almost to hide 
his face, and at his back reaching nearly to the ground. 
After him walked in pairs, sixty of Sidney's gentlemen 
and yeomen, men of all ages and sizes, but clothed alike 
in plain garbs of mourning. By themselves were Doctor 
James and Mr. Kell, the dead man's principal physician 
and surgeon, and a few paces behind was GriflSn Madox, 
his loving steward. Then there came sixty esquires of 
his kindred and friends, dressed like the gentlemen, and 
next twelve knights, also dressed in the same way, 
except that they wore ruffs about their necks. Of these 
twelve the best known were Sir Francis Drake, Sir 
Edward Waterhouse, and Sir Thomas Perrot. The 
preacher appointed for the day, attended by two chap- 
lains, parted these latter from the bearer of a pennant 
on which were embroidered Sir Philip's arms, and this 
served to introduce a separate portion of the procession. 
The hero's war horse, richly furnished, was led by a 
footman and ridden by a little page in whose left hand 
was one end of a broken lance, the other end being left 
to trail on the ground ; and following it, was a barbed 
horse, caparisoned with cloth of gold, and with another 
little page, who held a reversed battle-axe on its saddle. 
Next was seen the great banner, carried by Henry 
White, and attended by five of the heralds, in whose 
hands were badges of Sidney's knighthood. Portculhs 

U M 2 



532 A MEMOIR OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. LChap. xvi. 

held his spurs and his gloves, Blue-mantle his gauntlets, 
Rouge Dragon his helmet, Richmond his shield, and 
Somerset his tahard, while Clarence King-at-arms 
walked sedately at their rear. All these served as 
ushers of the coffin, which at length approached. 
Shrouded in rich black velvet and adorned, before and 
behind, on each side and at the top, with repetitions of 
the Sidney arms, it was lodged on two long poles, each 
resting on the shoulders of seven yeomen. Four youths 
of the family held up the family banners, and the pall 
was supported by Sir PhiKp's four dearest friends, Fulke 
Greville, Edward Dyer, Edward Wotton, and Thomas 
Dudley ; one being at each corner, and all clad in long 
gowns and closely fitting hoods. Sir Robert Sidney, 
dressed in the same garb, walked as chief mourner, and 
at a little distance were four knights and two gentle- 
men, the chief being Thomas Sidney. Then, preceded 
by two gentlemen-ushers and suitably mounted, came 
in pairs, the Earls of Leicester and Huntingdon, the 
Earls of Pembroke and Essex, the Lords Willoughby and 
North. They were followed by seven gentlemen of 
the Low Countries, one representative of each of the 
United Provinces, and by a long cavalcade headed by 
the Lord Mayor, in his purple robes. After him rode 
his aldermen, sheriffs, and recorder, twenty in all. Next 
came a hundred and twenty unarmed citizens of London, 
on foot ; and about three hundred civihans, trained for 
war, and all holding their weapons in the backward way, 
made up the rear.* 

* The Funeral of Sir Philip Sidney. A copy, I believe unique, of 



1587.] BUEIAL. 533 

The company, thus ordered, started from the Minories 
and proceeded slowly to Saint Paul's Cathedral, through 
streets so crowded that it was very difficult to pass at 
all. At length they reached the Church, of which the 
inside seemed to be altogether wrapped in black. Then 
the coffin was placed upon a pile, covered with black 
velvet, and beautifully adorned with escutcheons. Its 
motto Beati mortui qui in Domino moriuntur^ found 
echo in the heart of all the thousands who saw them 
written there and heard them uttered and enforced by 
the preacher. The sermon being over, and the service 
read, the body was interred, and a double volley of shot 
from the churchyard warned the people that all was 
over. 

Yet the grief thus publicly and splendidly displayed 
by the multitudes who attended Sir Philip Sidney's 
funeral was but a partial indication of the hearty sorrow 
felt by thousands upon thousands now, and before, and 
after. " It was accounted a sin," we are told, " for any 
gentleman of quality, for many months after, to appear 
at Court or City, in any light or gaudy apparel." * 
" What man can hold," quaintly exclaimed the same 
authority, " from bestowing a curse upon that friar of 
Mentz who, by intelHgence from hell, first invented and 
perfected that brood of guns, the sworn enemy to per- 
sonal valour ! For, had conquest been decided bv 

this singular and very valuable work is in the library of the British 
Museum, consisting of thirty plates, designed to be fastened together 
so as to form one long roll, and giving pictorial presentment of the 
whole pageant. 

* The Life and Death of Sir Philip Sidney. 



534 A MEMOIR OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. [Chap. XVI. 

sword and buckler, the only judge thereof in ancient 
ages, the subject of our complaint had, in probability, 
survived many years." 

And undoubtedly, he had fairly earned his country's 
tribute of loving and sorrowful speech. " This is that 
Sidney," wrote Camden of his kindest and most sym- 
pathetic patron, " who, as Providence seems to have 
sent him into the ^vorld to give the present age a spe- 
cimen of the ancients, so did it on a sudden recal him 
and snatch him from us as more worthy of Heaven than 
of earth." But the true-hearted student of men's 
thoughts and actions, and of Heaven's dealing with 
them in all ages, was too wise to grieve or repine. 
" Rest then in peace, Sidney," he added, " we will 
not celebrate your memory with tears, but admiration. 
Whatever we loved in you, whatever we admired in 
you, still continues and will continue in the memories 
of men, the revolutions of ages, and the annals of time. 
Many, as inglorious and ignoble, are buried in oblivion; 
but Sidney shall live to all posterity. For, as the 
Grecian poet has it, virtue's beyond the reach of 
fate." * 

Volumes would be filled were I to collect all the 
praise uttered in prose, and still more extensively in 
verse, by Sir Philip Sidney's contemporaries or his im- 
mediate successors. By the students of Oxford two 
volumes of elegiac poetry, chiefly in Latin, were heaped 
up ; and the sister University of Cambridge, though 
not able to claim him as its member, issued a similar 

* Camden, Britannia. 



Chap. XVI.] PKAISE AND MOUKNING. 535 

book of praise and lamentations. ^ Every one wrote 
something, and the writings of at least two hundred 
authors are extant. Greatest in poetical power was 
Edmund Spenser, from whose Astrophel I have several 
times quoted. Chief in worldly station was King James 
the Sixth of Scotland who, besides a Latin epigram, 
penned these hnes in English. 



" Thou miglity Mars, the lord of soldiers brave, 
And thou Minerve, that does in wit excel, 

And thou Apollo, who does knowledge have 
Of every art that from Parnassus fell, 
With all your sisters that thereon do dwell. 

Lament for him who duly served you all, 
Whom-in you wisely all your arts did mell. 

Bewail, I say, his unexpected fall ; 

I need not in remembrance for to call 

His race, his youth, the hope had of him ay, 

Since that in him doth cruel death appal 

Both manhood, wit, and learning every way ; 

But yet he doth in bed of honour rest. 

And evermore of him shall live the best." 



That sonnet has been quoted solely because of its 
authorship. Another claims citation both as being one 
of the sweetest and richest in our language, and as 
evidence of the kindliness with which a man who was a 
Papist, and who, therefore, had to divide much of his life 
between exile and imprisonment, could speak of one of 



* Peplus illustrissimi viri D. Sidncei supremis honoribus dicatus, 
Oxon. 1587. Exequi(B illustrissimi Equitis D. Philippi Sidncei 
gratissimcE memories ac nonmii impensce, Oxon. 1589. Academice 
Cantahrigiensis Lacrymce, tuvmlo nohilissimi Equitis D. Philippi 
Sidncei sacratce per Alexandrum Nevillum, Lond. 1587". 



530 A MEMOIR OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. [Chap. xvi. 

the foremost champions of the Protestant faith. It is 
the first of Henry Constable's Four Sonnets to Sir Philip 
Sidney s Soul; — 

" Give pardon, blessed soul, to my bold cries, 
If they, importunate, interrupt the song 
Which now, with joyful notes, thou sing'st among 

The angel-choristers of heavenly skies. 

Give pardon eke, sweet soul, to my slow cries. 
That since I saw thee now it is so long. 
And yet the tears that unto thee belong 

To thee as yet they did not sacrifice. 

I did not know that thou wert dead before, 

I did not feel the grief I did sustain : 

The greater stroke astonisheth the more ; 

Astonishment takes from us sense of pain ; 
I stood amazed when others' tears begun. 
And now begin to weep when they have done." 

But of all the verses suggested by Sidney's death, 
there is none so worthy of citation here as The Doleful 
Lay of Clorinda, written in pastoral terms by his 
sister, the Countess of Pembroke. Probably the model 
of Milton's Lycidas, it might almost be placed in 
equal rank with it for purity of thought and elegance 
of expression, though far its inferior in poetical vigour. 
Long as it is, I must reproduce in its perfectness this 
exquisite token of sisterly love and of Christian 
confidence. It opens thus : — 

'* Ah, me ! to whom shall I my case complain, 
That may compassion my impatient grief ? 
Or where shall I unfold my inward pain. 
That my enriven heart may find relief ? 
Shall I unto the heavenly powers it show ? 
Or unto earthly men that dwell below 1 



chxp.xvi.] sisteely lamentation. 537 

*' To heavens 1 ah, tliey, alas, tlie authors were 

And workers of my unremedied woe : 

For they foresee what to us happens here, 

And they foresaw, yet suffered this be so. 
From them comes good ; from them comes also ill ; 
That which they made, who can them warn to spill ? 

" To men ? ah, they, alas, like wretched be. 

And subject to the heavens' ordinance ; 
Bound to obey whatever they decree, 

Their best redress is their best sufferance. 
How then can they, like wretched, comfort me, 
The which no less need comforted to be ? 

" Then to myself will I my sorrow mourn. 

Since none alive like sorrowful remains ; 
And to myself my plaints shall back return, 

To pay their usury with doubled pains. 
The woods, the hills, the rivers shall resound 
The mournful accent of my sorrow's ground. 

" Woods, hills and rivers now are desolate. 

Since he is gone the which them all did grace ; 

And aU the fields do wail their widow-state. 
Since death their fairest flower did late deface. 

The fairest flower in field that ever grew 

Was Astrophel — that was, we all may rue. 

" What cruel hand of cursed foe unknown 

Hath cropped the stalk which bore so fair a flower ? 

Untimely cropped, before it well were grown, 
And clean defaced in untimely hour ; — 

Great loss to all that ever him did see, 

Great loss to all, — but greatest loss to me ! 

" Break now your garlands, oh, ye shepherds' lasses. 
Since the fair flower which them adorned is gone 

The flower which them adorned is gone to ashes ; 
Never again let lass put garland on ; 

Instead of garland, wear sad cypress now, 

And bitter elder, broken from the bough. 



538 A MEMOIR OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. [Chap. xvi. 

" Nor ever sing the love-lays which he made — 
"Who ever made such lays of love as he ? 
Nor ever read the riddles which he said 

Unto yourselves to make you merry glee. 
Your merry glee is now laid all abed : 
Your merry-maker now, alas ! is dead. 

*' Death, the devourer of all world's delight. 

Hath robbed you and reft from me my joy. 
Both you and me and all the world he quite 

Hath robbed of joyance and left sad annoy. 
Joy of the world and shepherds' pride was he : 
Shepherds, hope never like again to see ! 

" Oh, Death, that hast us of much riches reft ! 

Tell us, at least, what hast thoa with it done ? 
What has become of him whose flower here left 

Is but the shadow of his likeness gone ? 
Scarce like the shadow of that which he was. 
Nought like, but that he like a shade did pass. 

" But that immortal spirit, which was decked 

With all the dowries of celestial grace, 
By sovereign choice from the heavenly choirs select. 

And lineally derived from angels' race — 
Oh, what is now of it become aread ? 
Ah, me, can so divine a thing be dead ? 

*' Ah, no ! it is not dead, nor can it die, 
But lives for aye in blissful paradise, 
Where, like a new-born babe it soft doth lie, 

In bed of lilies wrapped in tender mse, 
And compassed all about with roses sweet. 
And dainty violets from head to feet. 

" There thousand birds, all of celestial brood, 
To him do sweetly carol, day and night, 
And with strange notes, of him well understood. 

Lull him to sleep in angelic delight : 
Whilst in sweet dream to him presented be 
Immortal beauties which no eye may see. 



Chap. XVI.] SISTERLY LAMENTATIOJT. 539 

" But lie them sees, and takes exceeding pleasure 

Of their divine aspects, appearing plain, 
And kindly love in him above all measure. 

Sweet love still joyous, never feeling pain. 
For what in goodly form he thus doth see, 
He may enjoy, from jealous rancour free, 

*' There liveth he, in everlasting bliss. 

Sweet spirit, never more to die ; 
Not dreading harm from any foes of his, 

Not feeling savage beasts' more cruelty: 
Whilst we here, wretches, wail his private lack. 
And with vain vows do often call him back. 

" But live thou there still, happy, happy spiri-S, 
And give us leave thee here thus to lament, 

Not thee, that dost thy heavenly joys inherit, 
But our own selves that here in dole are drent. 

Thus do we weep and wail and wear our eyes, 

Mourning in others our own miseries ! " 

The Countess of Pembroke certainly had reason to 
weep. Herself living on in widowhood until the year 
1621, she lost very many of her nearest kindred and 
best friends during a few years. Her father, her 
mother, and her best loved brother, all died, as we 
have seen, within a space of less than six months. In 
1588, at the age of fifty-six, the Earl of Leicester 
ended his brilliant life, very bad in many ways, but not 
without some redeeming points; and in 1590, before 
he was fully sixty years old, her other uncle, the Earl 
of Warwick, passed from a world in which he had 
dwelt much less pompously but much more worthily. 
In the same year, England lost one of its ablest and most 
honest statesmen, and the Sidney family its best friend, 
in the death of Sir Francis Walsingham. He died in 



540 A MEMOIR OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. [Chap, xvi, 

liis fifty-fourth year so poor that it was needful to bury 
him at night-time in Saint PauFs Cathedral, where he 
lay in the same tomb with the remains of his honoured 
son-in-law. Well might Spenser write, in 1591, The 
Ruins of Time, designed to commemorate the great- 
ness of Sir Philip Sidney's kin, so many lately dead, 
but chiefly Sir Phihp Sidney himself, that — 

*' Most gentle spirit, breathed from above, 

Out of the bosom of the Maker's bliss. 
In whom all bounty and all virtuous love 

Appeared in their native properties, 

And Sid enrich that noble breast of his 
"With measure passing all this worlde's worth. 
Worthy of Heaven itself, which brought it forth. 

^ ^ His blessed spirit, full of power divine 
And influence of all celestial grace, 

Loathing this sinful earth and earthly clime, 
Fled back too soon unto his native place. 
Too soon for all that did his love embrace. 

Too soon for all this wretched world, whom he 

Robbed of all right and true nobility. " 

Besides his sister, the Countess of Pembroke, his 
younger brother, Colonel Thomas Sidney, of whom 
hardly anything is known, and his other brother 
Robert, knighted for his bravery at Zutphen, — who, 
after inheriting the property of the Sidneys, and being 
created Baron Penshurst in his own right, was raised 
by King James the First to the Earldom of Leicester, 
left vacant by his uncle's death, — Sir Philip left his 
widow and her infant daughter. Lady Frances Sidney's 
subsequent story belongs rather to a biography of her 
second husband, the famous Robert Devereux, Earl of 



Chap. XVI.] A THUE MODEL OF WOETH. 541 

Essex, than to this volume. After that nobleman's 
execution, she was again married, her last husband 
being E-ichard de Burgh, Earl of Clanricarde, after- 
wards of St. Albans. The child, EHzabeth Sidney, 
lived for thirty years. At the age of fifteen she 
became the wife of Roger Manners, fifth Earl of Rut- 
land. In 1615, she died without issue, her property 
reverting to her uncle, the new Lord Penshurst, from 
whom were descended those later Sidneys, male and 
female, who have helped to make the name illustrious. 

But Sir Philip Sidney's name has a lustre of its 
own. Rare and noble, surelj^, is his character, evinced 
in a life of less than two and thirty years. " Indeed," 
wrote Fulke Greville, afterwards Lord Brooke, in 
words which will most fitly close this memoir of his 
friend and kinsman, " he was a true model of worth ; 
a man fit for conquest, plantation, reformation, or 
what action soever is the greatest and hardest among 
men ; withal such a lover of mankind and goodness, 
that whosoever had any real parts, in him found 
comfort, participation, and protection to the utter- 
most of his power ; like Zephyrus, he giving life 
where he blew. The universities abroad and at home 
accounted him a general Mecsenas of learning, dedi- 
cated their books to him, and communicated every 
invention or improvement of knowledge with him. 
Soldiers honoured him, and were so honoured by him, 
as no man thought he marched under the true banner 
of Mars, that had not obtained Sir Philip Sidney's 
approbation. Men of affairs, in most parts of Christen- 
dom, entertained correspondency with him. But what 



542 A MEMOIR OF SIR nilLIP SIDNEY. chap. xvi. 

speak I of these with whom his own ways and ends 
did concur ? since, to descend, his heart and capacity 
were so large that there was not a cunning painter, 
a skilful engineer, an excellent musician, or any other 
artificer of extraordinary fame, that made not himself 
known to this famous spirit, and found him his true 
friend without hire, and the common rendezvous of 
worth in his time. Besides, the ingenuity of his 
nature did spread itself so freely abroad, as who lives 
that can say he ever did him harm 1 whereas there 
be many living that may thankfully acknowledge he 
did them good. Neither was this in him a private, but 
a public affection ; his chief ends being not friends, 
wife, children, and himself, but above all things the 
honour of his Maker, and the service of his prince and 
country." 



INDEX. 



Alen^on, Duke of. See Anjou. 

Alliteration, Elizabethan, 230, 231. 

Amberg, Sidney at, 140. 

American Colonization, projected by 
Sir Humphrey Gilbert and others, 
369 ; encouraged by Sidney, 371, 463 ; i 
attempted by Raleigh, 440, 444, 445. j 

Anabaptist doctor, Sidney's favour to- 
wards, an, 490, n. 

Anglo-Saxon and Frisian languages, 474. 

Anjou, Fi^ancis, Duke of; his purposed 
marriage to Queen Elizabeth (1572), 
53 ; hindered, 243 ; renewed (1579), 
243, 244 ; English resistance to, 
244 ; Sidney's arguments against 
(1580), 245, 246, 252-259 ; ambassa- 
dors to England about it (1581), 294, 
295 ; Walsingham sent to France 
respecting it, 305; Anjou himself in 
England, 306-308; departure (1582), 
309 ; entertainment at Antwerp, 
309-311; his later career, disgrace, 
and death (1584), 423-426; his cha- 
racter, 308. ^ . 

Antiquaries, London Society of, founded 
by Sidney, 418. 

Antonio, Don, Claimant to the Crown 
of Portugal, asks help of Sidney, 300 ; 
Sidney's plan for helping him, 435; 
his visit to England, 467; later career 
and character, 299, 300. 

Antwerp, festivities in, 309, 310; Lan- 
guet's death and burial at, 303, 304 ; 
Sidney at, 93, 309-311. 

Arcadia, Sannazzaro's, 324. 

Arcadia, Sidney's, 822-348. 

Arcadian RhetoHque, Fraunce's, 418. 

Areopagus, Sidney's, 237. 

Aristotle, studied by Sidney, 76, 227. 

Arnau, Sidney at, 491. 

Arnheim, besieged by the Spaniards, 
485; Sidney at, 502; taken thither 
when wounded, 507 ; there he died, 
525 ; his corpse removed thence, 627. 

Arran, Earl of, 449, 450. 



Arte of English Poesie, Puttenham's, 
405, 406. 

Arte of Rhetorique, Wilson's, 231, 383. 

Arundel, Earl of, 250, 296. 

Ascham's account of the universities in 
his day, 24; Lady Sidneys tutor, 30; 
influence on Philip, 227. 

Ashtou, Thomas, Sidney's master at 
Shrewsbury, 18. 

Astronomy, studied by Sidney, 73, 75. 

A stropJiel, Spenser's, 108, 313, 314. 

Astrophel and S'eUa, Sidney's, 348-352. 

Atheury, in Connaught, visited by Sir 
H. Sidney, 16, 17, and by him re- 
stored, 356. 

Audley End, Sidney at, 201, 202, 233. 

Axel, capture of, planned by Count 
Maurice, of Nassau, 495; referred to 
Sidney and effected by him, 496, 497; 
its fame, 498. 



B. 



Babington's conspiracy, 442, 449. 

Banosius, Sidney's friend, 228. 

Banquet at Middelburg, 480 ; at Kenil- 
worth, 100. 

Bear-baiting, an Elizabethan, 98. 

Bedroom, Lady Mary Sidney's, 209- 
211. 

Belarius, Sidney's lost letter to, written 
on his death-bed, 513, 

Bergen, Sidney at, 485, 489, 

Bohemian Diet of 1575, The, 141. 

Bootmaker's bill, Sidney's, 120. 

Braekenbury, his expenses attendant on 
the christening of Elizabeth Sidney, 
471. 

Brill, Sir Thomas Cecil, Governor of, 
457, 476. 

Brooke, Lord. See Greville, Fulke. 

Bryskitt, Lewis, visit to the continent 
with Sidney in 1573, 68; wrote a. Dis- 
course of Civill Life, 69, 416, 417. 

Buckhurst,Lord. ^SeeSackville, Thomas. 

Burghley, Lord. See Cecil, William, 

Butler, Thomas, Earl of Ormond, 



544 



INDEX. 



favoured by the Queen, 163-166 ; 
opposed by Sir H. Siduey, 15, 22, 
162-165; bearded by Philip Sidney, 
167, 168; his new-year's gift to the 
Queen, 182. 

Butler's War, quelled by Sir H. Sidney, 
15, 355. 

Butrech, Peter, 191. 



Cabot, John and Sebastian, 176. 

Cakes given to Sidney, 51. 

Cambridge, a literary circle at, 44, 234, 
236. 

Cambyses and Croesus, 193. 

Camden, William, college friendship 
with Sidney, 43; praise of him, 534 ; 
account of Shrewsbury, 18, n. 

Carew, Sir Peter, at Oxford, 25, 42. 

Carew, Richard, of Antony, in public 
argument with Sidney at Oxford, 42 ; 
ti-anslation of Godfrey of Boloigne, 
268; death and epitaph, 42, n. 

Carlyle, Christopher, a leader of 
American colonization, 369 ; in 
Drake's expedition of 1585, 470. 

Casimir, Prince John, Sidney's friend 
(1577), 135, 140; their conference 
138-140 ; Queen Elizabeth's lieu 
tenant in the Netherlands (1578), 204 
his useless expedition thither, 204 
213 ; journey to England (1579), 214 
and entertainment there, 214-217 
installation as K. G., Sidney being 
proxy (1583), 364. 

Catherine de' Medici, Queen-Mother of 
France; Sidney's introduction to, 57; 
and opinion of, 254 ; Elizabeth's pro- 
posed message to, by Sidney, 426; 
her treatment of the Netherlands, 
454, 472, 473; proposal to attack 
England, 473. 

Catholics in England, severe treatment 
of, 293, 442. 

Cecil, Anne, eldest daughter of Sir 
William and Lady Mildred Cecil, 30; 
proposed marriige to Sidney, 31, 36- 
38 ; wife of Edward de Vere, Earl of 
Oxford, 39. 

Cecil, Lady Mildred ; her life and cha- 
racter, learning and good works, 30. 

Cecil, Sir Thomas, eldest son of Lord 
BuTghley, knighted at Kenilworth, 
101; governor of Brill, 475. 

Cecil, William, Lord Burghley ; early 
career, 5, 29 ; his interest in Philip and 
his parents, 27-29, 34, 48, 118; Lady 
Sidney's letters to him, 48, 118; 
Elizabeth's blame of him in respect 



of the stores in the Tower, 447 ; hia 

policy respecting the Netherlaads, 

438, 557; character, 29, 31, 438. 
Cess, Irish, 169, 170. 
Charles IX. of France ; made a K.G. at 

the same time as Sir H. Sidney, 11 ; 

compliments to Philip when in Paris, 

57 ; share in the Massacre of Saint 

Biirtholomew, 59; delirious end, 147. 
Charlotte of Bourbon, wife of Prince 

William of Orange ; her career, 155 ; 

Sidney's acquaintance with, 156 ; her 

present to him, 156 ; death, 424. 
Char tley Castle, the seat of the De vereux, 

104. 
Chaucer, 398. 
Christ Church, Oxford, founded by 

Wolsey, 33 ; Sir Henry Sidney at, 26; 

Philip at, 33, 34, 41,48, 50. 
Christian Religion, The Trewnesse of the, 

Sidnev's and Golding's translation of, 

407-410. 
Christmas in Elizabeth's day, 182. 
Churchyard, Thomas, 39, 203. 
Ciceroniauism, 74, 75, 278. 
Clanricarde, the second Earl of. Sir 

Henry Sidney's opponent, 16, 355. 
Clanricarde, the third Earl of, married 

Sir Philip Sidney's widow. 541. 
Clorinda, The Countess of Pembroke's 

Doleful Lay of, 536-539. 
Coligni, Gaspard de, Admiral of France, 

56, 59, 60. 
Cologne, Sidney at, 151. 
Colonization, American. See American 

Colonization. 
Comedy, Sidney's remarks on, 401, 402. 
Commons . See Parliament. 
Coningsby, Thomas, Sidney's friend, 

69 ; charged by him with theft, 70. 
Constable's Sonnets, 350 ; his Sonnet 

to Sir Philip Sidney's Soul, 536. 
Countess of Pembrolce's Arcadia, by Sid- 
ney, 322-348. 
Countess of Pemhrolc^s Toychurch, by 

Abraham Fraunce, 417- 
Coventry Players at Kenilworth, 99. 
Cox, Captain, at Kenilworth, 99. 
Coyne and Livery, Statute of, 355. 
Criticism; Sidney's Defence of Poesie, 

383-404; other works, 383, 384,405, 

406. 



David, The Psalms of, translated by 
Sidney and the Countess of Pembroke, 
268, 269. 

Davison, William, ambassador in the 
Netherlands, i66. 



INDEX. 



545 



Death-bed Scenes : — 

1576. Walter, Earl of Essex, 128-130. 
1581. Hubert Languet, 303, 304. 
1586. Sir Henry Sidney, 492, 493. 
1586. Lady Mary Sidney, 494, 495. 
1586. Sir Philip Sidney, 509-525. 
Defence of his Father, Sidney's. 168-175. 
Defence of Poesie, Sidney's, 383-406. 

Defence of the Earl of Leicester, Sidney's, 

407. 
Deputies, Dutch, in England (1585), 
456, 465. 

Desu-e, The Foster Children of, 295-297. 

Devereux, Lettice, wife of Walter, Earl 
of Essex, cousin to Queen Elizabeth, 
entertains the Queen at Chartley, 
105-107; attachment to the Earl of 
Leicester, 130; her place at court, 
183, 188, 189 ; privately married to 
the Earl of Leicester, 203. 

Devereux, Penelope, eldest daughter of 
Walter, Earl of Essex, 108 ; met by 
Philip at Chartley, 108, 283 (1575); 
her marriage with Sidney urged by 
her father on his death-bed, 129, 284 
(1576) ; and everywhere talked about, 
133, 284; Philip's "boyish wooing," 
189, 284-286 ; her unwilling marriage 
to Lord Eich, 287, 288 (1580); 
Philip's chagrin, 287, 288-290, and 
crime. 291 ; her influence over him, 
807, 314-317 (1581-2); its decline, 
374-376 (1583); her later history, 
377, 378, 01. (1583-1607). 

Deverexix, Robert, second Earl of Essex, 
108, 133, 532. 

Devereux, Walter, first Earl of Essex, 
ti'eatment of by the Queen, 105-107, 
121, 122 ; friendship towards Sid- 
ney, 123, 129 ; death, 128-130 ; in- 
fluence on Sidney, 131, 265. 

Diana, Montemayor's, 325. 

Discourse of Civill Life, Bryskitt's, 63. 

Doesberg, investment of, by Leicester, 
Sidney, and others, 503. 

Dorset, Robert, Sidney's tutor at Oxford, 
33, 125. 

Drake, Sir Francis, 368 ; voyage to the 
West Indies, 463 ; undertaking with 
Sidney to attack the Spanish Colonies, 
463, 466; his dishonest dealing in the 
matter, 467-469; the issue of his 
expedition, 470 ; at Sidney's funeral, 
531. 

Drama, Sidney's view of the, 899-402. 

Dramatist, Sidney not a, 233. 

Dresden, Sidney at, 91. 

Dudley, Ambrose, Earl of Warwick, 8 ; 
patronage of Frobisher, 176, 194 ; 



Master of the Ordnance, 366; re- 
ceives Sidney as joint holder of the 
ofi&ce, 366, 446. 

Dudley, Lord Guilford, 8. 

Dudley, John, Duke of Northumber- 
land, 7,8. 

Dudley, Lady Mary. See Sidney, Lady. 

Dudley, Robert, Earl of Leicester, 8 ; 
Chancellor of Oxford University, 24 ; 
interest in his nephew Philip Sidney 
(1568-1571), 28, 32, 36, 38,40; sends 
him on his continental tour (1572),54; 
entertains him at Kenilworth (1575), 
96 ; jealousy of Walter, Earl of Essex, 
124; wrongly suspected of murdering 
the Earl of Essex (1576), 130 ; his at- 
tachment to the Countess of Essex, 
132; New Year's present to the 
Queen (1578), 182 ; secret marriage 
to the Countess of Essex, 203 ; enter- 
tains Prince Casimir, 216 (1579) ; 
opposition to the Queen's projected 
marriage, 244 ; publication of his 
own marriage, the Queen's displea- 
sure, and his consequent retirement 
from the Court, 244 (1579) ; his re- 
turn, 275 (1580) ; at Oxford with his 
nephew, 300 (1581); journey to the 
Low Coimtries with the Duke of 
Anjou, 309 (1582); Commander of 
the Forces in the Netherlands, and 
Lord Lieutenant, 475 ; his selfish 
projects, 483 (1586) ; and ignoble 
abandonment of them, 484 ; his 
soldiers handsome but unarmed, 
486 ; pleased at his nephew's work, 
but jealous of him, 487 ; his grief at 
Sidney's illness and death, 506, 507, 
510, 514, 525, 526; his nephew's 
bequest to, 520 ; at Sidnev's fune- 
ral, 532 (1587) ; the end of his cam- 
paign in the Netherlands, 508 ; the 
end of his life, 539 (1588); his in- 
fluence on Sir Philip Sidney, 95; his 
character, 94, 95, 480. 

Duns Scotus, 227. 

Du Plessis Morn ay, Philip. &eMomay. 

Durham House, 123 

Du Simiers, the Duke of Anjou's agent 
in England, 243, 244, 247. 

Dutch diplomacy, 456, 465. 

Dyer, Sir Edward, Sidney's friend, with 
him at Oxford, 41 ; and at Court, 
180; Languet's praise, 218 ; Courtly 
favour, 220 ; literary work, 237, 282, 
283 ; in the Low Countries with the 
Duke of Anjou, 309, 310; Sidney's 
bequest to him, 521 ; a pall-bearer 
at his friend's burial, 632. 



546 



INDEX. 



E. 



Edward, Prince, (afterwards Edward 
VI.,) Sir H. Sidney's playfellow, 4 ; 
favours to Sir H. Sidney, 5. 

Elizabeth, Queen, her visit to Oxford, 
25 (1566) ; purposed max-riage with 
the Duke of Anjou, 52 (1572); letter 
to Sir H. Sidney about his daughters, 
110 (1575); at Kenilworth, 96; at 
Chartley, 105; further progress, 
111 ; lost in a fog after attending the 
death-bed of Anne, Countess of Pem- 
broke, 159, n, ; approval of Sidney's 
work as ambassador, 156 (1577) ; 
unjust treatment of his father, 161- 
166 ; Philip's remonstrance with her, 
167-174 ; his temporary success, 
175; her fresh anger towards Sir H. 
Sidney, 194-197 (1578) ; her pro- 
gresses, 199-203 ; her reception of 
Casimir, 214-217 (1579) ; her expos- 
tulation with Sidney about his 
quarrel with the Earl of Oxford, 
248, 249; renewed project for her 
marriage with the Duke of Anjou, 
243; her anger at all opposition, 
246; Sidney's objections, 244, 245, 
252-259 (1580); entertainment of 
Anjou, 307 (1581); verses on parting 
from the Duke, 308 (1582) ; makes 
Sidney a knight and confers other 
favours upon him, 363, 364 (1583) ; 
intended message about the Duke of 
Anjou's death, 425-427 (1584) ; dis- 
position to act in the affairs of the 
Netherlands, 421 ; foreign policy, 
438 ; speech on proroguing parlia- 
ment, 443 (1585); policy towards 
the Netherlands, 454, 455, 465; 
godmother to Elizabeth Sidney, Sir 
Philip's daughter, 471 ; proclama- 
tion on behalf of the Netherlands, 
474 ; her quarrel with the Earl of 
Leicester, 483, 484 (1586); dis- 
approves Sidney's bold, straight- 
forward proceedings, 487 ; angry 
that a colonelcy, designed by her 
for Count Hohenlo, is given to Sid- 
ney, 498; her grief at Sidney's 
death, 520. 

Elizabeth, widow of Charles IX. of 
France, Sidney's visit to, 147 

Embassages of Sir P. Sidney ; to Ger- 
many, 134-157 (1577); intended, to 
France, 425-427 (1584). 

England, according to Sidney, should 
stand alone, 256 ; should be mistress 
of the sea, 436 ; should be the pro- 



tectress of all persecuted nations 

437, 455 
Erigena, J ohn, DcDivisioneNatunc, 410. 
Essex, Earl of. See Devereux. 
Exchange, Bill of, drawn by Sidney, 

64, w. 
Eaphues, Lyly's, 323, 324. 



F. 



Faerie Queene, Spenser's, 242, 414. 

Farnese, Alexander. See Parma, Duke 
of, 

Ferdinando, Simon, American explora- 
tions, 370, 371. 

Fireworks, Elizabethan, 98. 

FitzWalter, Lord, Lord Deputy of 
Ireland, 10. 

Flanders. See Netherlands. 

Flushing, Sidney's first visit to, 309 ; 
treaty about, 474 ; Sidney to be 
governor of, 457 ; another com- 
petitor, 467; Sidney's appointment as 
governor, 475; its value, 477 ; needs a 
larger garrison, 481 ; Lady Frances 
Sidney in, 490 ; threatened mutiny 
in, 502. 

France, political state of (1584), 426, 
430, 431. 

Frankfort, Sidney at, 64, 91. 

Fraunce, Abraham, a dependent of 
Sidney's, 417. 

Frederic III, Elector Palatine, 138. 

Frobisher, Martin, his three Arctic 
voyages, 176, 194; fancied gold- 
finding, 177, 179, 180; favour at 
Court, 200 ; vice-admiral in Drake's 
expedition, 470. 



G. 



Gaping Gulf, The, 246, n. 

Gascoigne; George, the poet, 103, n. 
228. 

Germany, political state of (1584), 
431, 432. 

Gifford, George, the minister who at- 
tended Sidney on his death -bed, 510. 

Gilbert, Sir Humphrey, promoter of 
American colonization, 369, 370 ; 
neglected by Elizabeth, 370. 

Glamis, Master of, 450. 

Golding, Arthur, translation of Ovid's 
Metamorplioses, 268 ; Mornay's Be 
Christiana Veritate, 407-410. 

Gold-seeking, 179, 463, 

Gosson, Stephen, 415. 

Go wry, Earl of, 450. 

Grave, Sidney's scheme for attacking. 



INDEX. 



547 



485; won and lost again, 491,492, 
497. 

Gravelines, Sidney's designs against, 
495. 

Gray, Master of, 451 ; aflfection for, and 
dependence on, Sidney, 452. 

Grey, Lady Jane, 8, 30. 

Grey of Wilton, Lord, Lord Deputy of 
Ireland, 272, 353. 

Greville, Fulke, Lord Brooke, Sidney's 
friend ; born at Walcot, 41 (1554) ; 
at Shrewsbury School, 18 (1564); 
at Oxford (1570), thence to Cam- 
bridge, 41 ; attends Sidney in his 
German embassage, 187 (1577) ; in 
company with him at Court, 180 ; 
New Year's gift to the Queen, 183 
(1578) .his journey to the continent, 
218 (1579) ; interview with William 

' of Orange, 154, 221 ; at Court with 
Sidney, 282, 283 (1580) ; his share in 
a passage at arms before Elizabeth, 
296-299 (1581) ; in attendance on the 
Duke of Anjou in Antwerp, 309, 310 
(1582); Parliamentary work, 442 
(1585) ; joined with Sidney in the 
West Indian project, 464 ; goes with 
him to Plymouth and discovers 
Drake's duplicity, 468 ; recalled to 
Court by the Queen, 469 ; Sidney's 
bequest to him, 521 (1586); a pall- 
bearer at his friend's burial, 532. 

Grindal, Archbishop, 443. 

Guise, Duke of, share in tbe massacre 
of St. Bartholomew, 57, 60 ; in for- 
mation of the League, 433. 



H. 



Hague, Sidney at the, 485. 

Hakluyt, Richard, at college with Sid- 
ney, 43; dedicates his Voyages to 
him, 371. 

Hall, Arthur, punished for abusing the 
Commons, 293,294. 

Harvey, Gabriel, career and character, 
44, 233, 234; his employment at 
Audley End, 202 ; complimentary 
verses to Sidney, 233, n.; share in 
the Areopagus, 237 ; his views about 
poetry, 237, 238, 242; his Satirical 
Verses, 239, 240, 

Hannau, The Count of, Sidney's friend, 
79, 93. 

Hatton,Sir Christopher, Sidney's friend, 
183, 185, 186; his son with Sidney 
in the Netherlands, 496. 

Heidelberg, Sidney at, 61, 91, 137, 148. 

Heliodorus's Ethiopic History, 324. 



Henry VIL of England, 7. 

Henry VIII. of England, friendship to 
the Sidneys, 3, 4. 

Henry III. of France, Sidney's pro- 
posed embassage to, 425-427; his 
worthlessness, 431 ; inactivity in 
the affairs of tbe Netherlands, 426 ; 
abandonment of them, 454. 

Henry of Navarre (afterwards Henry 
IV. of France), friendship towards 
Sidney, 57; marriage, 58; his peril- 
ous position, 473. 

Herbert, George, the poet, holder of a 
sinecure formerly conferred on Sid- 
ney, 302. 

Herbert, Henry, Earl of Pembroke, 
159 ; Sidney's bequest to, 521. 

Herbert, Mary, Countess of Pembroke, 
Sidney's sister, under the Queen's 
care, 110 (1575); place at Court, 119 
(1576); marriage, 160 (1577) ; visited 
by Philip, 161 ; at Court, 183 (1578) ; 
a friend of Languet, 217 (1579); in 
Philip's and her parents' company, 
263, 264 (1580); herself a mother, 
263 ; her influence on Philip, 265- 
268 ; translates, with him. The 
Psalms, 268 ; and urges him to write 
TJie Arcadia ; her lament at his 
death, 536-539; her red hair, 312; 
her patronage of Abraham Fraunce, 
417, 418. 

Herle, William, Sidney's friend, 429 

High Commission Court, 443. 

History, the study of, 227, 276, 277; 
compared with poetry, 389, 390, 392. 

Hohenlo, or Hollock. Count, takes and 
loses Grave, 491 ; a drunken quarrel, 
499; his characteristic devotion to 
Sidney, 514. 

Holland. See Netherlands. 

Horsemanship, the study of, 89, 278; 
Sidney's skill in, 89, 299. 

Huguenots, in Paris, 58-60. 

Hungary, Sidney in, 65. 

Huntingdon, Earl of, share in Penelope 
Devereux's marriage, 286; Sidney's 
bequest to, 521. 



I. 



Ikon Basilihe, the, 337, w. 
Indian project, Sidney's, 191. 
Innkeepers in Sidney's day, 70. 
Ireland, Sir H, Sidney's services in, 

11-17. 162, 355-357; PhiUp's visit 

to, 125-130. 
Irish manners, 173, 355. 

N N 2 



54.8 



INDEX. 



J. 



James VI. of Scotluud, character of his 
reign, 449, 450 ; his proposed alliance 
with Spain, 451 ; Elizabeth's present 
to him, 452; his Treatise of the Airt 
of Scottis Poesie, 405 ; his lament for 
Sidney, 535. 

Jesuits, severe legislation concerning, 
442. 

John of Austria, Don, military and 
naval skill, 80, 84, 85 ; his govern- 
ment of the Netherlands, 152, 153; 
visited by Sidney, 153. 

Jonson, Ben, account of Penshurst, 1, 
2 ; epitaph on the Countess of Pem- 
broke, 267. 



K. 



Ken il worth, shows and festivities at, 

96-103. 
Kitson, Lady, aided by Sidney, 311, 
Knollys, Sir Francis, 188, 203. 
Knollys, Francis, his son, Rear-Admiral 

in Drake's West Indian Expedition, 

470. 



Lady of the May, Sidney's, 199, 229. 

Lane, Ralph, first Governor of Vir- 
ginia, early career, 445 ; his letter to 
Sidney, 461 ; failure of his expedi- 
tion, 470. 

Laugham, at Kenilworth, 103, n. 

Languet, Hubert, early career, 62, 63; 
becomes acquainted with Sidney 
(1573), and takes him to Vienna, 64 ; 
corresponds much with him while in 
Italy, 66-88 (1574) ; writes verse in 
his praise, 77 ; asks for his portrait, 
77 ; is very pleased when he has it, 
91 ; entertains him at Vienna, 89 ; 
goes with him to Prague, 90 (1575) ; 
and parts from him at Frankfort, 91 ; 
writes many letters to him in Eng- 
land, 113-116; advises him to marry, 
168 (1576) ; is fearful about the 
dangers of Sidney's journey to Ire- 
land, 126 ; and much pleased to meet 
him again at Heidelberg, 137 (1577) ; 
is with him during his embassage, 
137; and parts from him at Co- 
logne, 157 ; dissuades him from 
Arctic voyaging (1578), and would 
have him work at home, 192; marry 
and be a statesman, 193; shows the 
difference between just and unjust 
warfare, 206-208 ; visits England in 



Jan. 1579, Sidney helping to en- 
tertain him, 214-217; finds many 
now friends, 217, 218; but loses much 
of his esteem for the Elizabethan 
Court, 218 ; is really troubled at 
Sidney's quarrel with the Earl of 
Oxford, 251 ; still more at the result 
of his opposition to Queen Eliza- 
beth's purposed marriage (1580), 259- 
262 ; in Jan. he urges him to take 
refuge in Germany, 260 ; but, finding 
that there is no real danger, he 
presses him, in Sept., to return to 
Court, 272-274 ; in Oct. he writes to 
him the last letter extant, warning 
him of the dangers of Court life, 
280, 281 (1581) ; his death at Ant- 
werp, 303 ; the value of his friend- 
ship for Sidney, 63, 304. 
Lawier's Logike, Fraunce's, 417. 
League, the Holy, 434, 473. 
League, among Protestants, Sidney's 
scheme for a, 145, 433; not successful, 
149. 
Leicester, Earl of. See Dudley, Robert. 
Leicester'' s Commonwealth, 407. 
Lepanto, Battle of, 85 
Letters : — 

1566. Sir Henry Sidney to Philip, 20, 
with a postscript from Lady Sid- 
ney, 22 ; a compendium of wise 
parental advice. 
1568.* 3rd Sept. Sir William Cecil 
to Sir Heniy Sidney, 27 ; blaming 
him for taking Philip from Oxford. 
1569.* 2 Feb., the same to the same, 
31 ; about the proposed marriage 
of Philip with Anne Cecil. 
1569.* 2 March, Philip to Cecil, in 
Latin, 34 ; expressing gratitude 
for his favours. 
1572.* 2 May, Lady Sidney to Lord 
Burghley, 48; about her husband's 
proposed peerage, and the hard- 
ship of their situation. 
1573, 1574. Extracts from letters be- 
tween Philip and Languet, 66-88. 
1575.* Feb. Queen Elizabeth to Sir 
H.Sidney, 110; on the occasion of 
his daughter Ambrozia's death. 
1576.* 7 Aug. Lady Sidney to Burgh- 
ley, 118; seeking his advice as to 
the best way of managing her 
poor estate, and overcoming her 
many diffictdties. 
1577. Extracts from Sidney's de- 

* The letters thus marked are here 

printed for the first time. 



INDEX. 



549 



spatches as ambassador in Ger- 
many, 138-140, 146-147. 

1577. Sir H. Sidney to the Earl of 
Leicester, 160; rejoicing at his 
daughter Mary's approaching mar- 
riage, but regretting his inability 
to give with her a suitable portion. 

1577. 30 Sept. Sidney to Languet, 
177; about the gold discoveries 
attributed to Frobisher. 

1577. 28 Nov. Languet to Sidney, 
178 ; strongly dissuading him 
from gold-seeking. 

1578. Extracts from further cor- 
respondence between Sidney and 
Languet, 190-193, 200, 201, 206- 
209. 

1578. 13 Feb. Sir Henry Sidney to 
Queen Elizabeth, 195 ; complain- 
ing of her unjust withholding 
from him of money due to him, 
and which he needs for paying 
the balance of his daughter's 
dowry. 

1578. 25 Sept. Philip to his father, 
196; advice as to his affairs and 
praise of his mother. 

1578. 28 April. Philip Sidney to 
Edward Waterhouse, 197 ; friendly 
gossip. 

1578. 31 May. The same to Edmund 
Molineux, 198 ; accusing him of 
reading his letters to his father, 
and threatening to punish him. 

1578. 1 July. Molineux to Sidney, 
198, 199 ; a dignified rejoinder, 

1578. 1 Aug. Sir H. Sidney to his 
son, 205 ; permitting him to go 
to the Netherlands, but repre- 
senting how great a loss his ab- 
sence will be to him, considering 
the Queen's strange unkindness. 

1578. Lady Sidney to Molineux, 
209-211 ; bidding him try and 
get another room for her husband 
to use as an office, since her bed- 
room, she being continually ill and 
the Queen often with her, is not 
quite convenient. 

1579. Philip Sidney to his brother 
Robert, 222-225; respecting the 
best ways of tx-avelling, and the 
things to be studied on the road. 

1580. The same to Queen Elizabeth, 
253-259 ; respectfully offering 
many and strong reasons against 
her purposed marriage with the 
Duke of Anjou. 

1580. Extracts from Languet's let- 



ters about Sidney's quarrel with 
the Earl of Oxford, 251 ; and dis- 
credit with the Queen, 260, 272- 
274. 

1580. Sidney to Arthur Atey, 261 ; 
thanking him for his services. 

1680. 15 Oct. The same to his 
brother Robert, 275-279 ; about 
money matters, the study of his- 
tory, mathematics, horsemanship, 
sword-exercise, and much else. 

1580. 28 Oct. Languet's last letter 
to Sidney, 280, 281 ; warning 
him of the dangers of Court life, 
and reminding him of the duties 
devolving upon him. 

1581. 10 Oct. Sidney to Burghley, 
301 ; about pecuniary help pro- 
mised him by the Queen ; asking 
for lOOZ. a year in impropriations. 

1581. 10 Nov. The same to the 
Queen, 302 ; sending a cypher 
which he had prepared. 

1581.* The same to Walsingham, 
306 ; about his brother Eobert, 
and sending salutations to his 
" exceeding like to be good friend." 

1582. 14 Nov. The same to Burgh- 
ley, 361 ; submitting for the 
Queen's consideration his father's 
papers ; reference to the death of 
his friend Wentworth. 

1582. The same to Leicester, asking 
for leave, on account of ill-health 
and other causes, to absent him- 
self from Court that Christmas. 

1583.* 1 March. Sir Henry Sidney 
to Sir Francis Walsingham, 5, 11, 
16, 50, 127, 358-360, 379, 380, 
381 ; explains his apparent care- 
lessness about Philip's marriage 
with Frances ; shows how it has 
arisen from his extreme poverty ; 
then proceeds at great length to 
recount the chief incidents in liis 
life, ending with further allusion 
to the marriage. 

1585.* 15 May. Philip Sidney to 
Lord Burghley, 447, 448; about 
the bad state of the Ordnance 
stores, and the blame attaching to 
the Lord Treasurer thereupon. 

1585.* 16 May. The same to Wal- 
singham, 448, n. ; about Mr. Pey ty. 

1585. Extracts from Sidney's letters 
to Leicester and Walsingham, 
respecting the condition of affairs 
in the Netherlands, 476-479, 481, 
482, 485-487. 



550 



INDEX. 



1586. 24 March. Sidney to Walsing- 
ham, 488-490 ; about the Queen's 
neglect of the Netherlands and 
injustice towards himself; hence- 
forth he can trust in God. alone ; 
allusion to home matters. 
1586.* 10 May. The same to the 
same, 490, n. ; about a physician 
who is an Anabaptist, but honest 
in everything. 
1586.* 28 June. The same to the 
same, 490, n. ; recommending Sir 
Richard Dyer ; Lady Frances, his 
■wife, is at Flushing, very well and 
naerry. 
1586.* 25 July. The same to the 
same, 499, n.; i-ecommending a 
Mr. Frewin. 
1586.* 14 Aug. The same to Her 
Majesty's Privy Council, 500 ; the 
weak state of Flushing ; its de- 
fence cannot be maintained with- 
out help. 
1586.* 14 Aug. The same to Wal- 
singham, 501 ; it is useless to make 
camps and mar them for want of 
means. 
1586.* 14 Aug. The same to the 
same, 502 ; this night there has 
been threatening of mutiny ; a 
town which, if well held, would 
make impossible the Spanish in- 
vasion of England, is on the point 
. of being lost. 
1586.* 10 Sept. The same to the 
same, 503, n.; recommending Lord 
Burrow to succeed Sir Thomas 
Cecil as Governor of Brill. 
1586.* 22 Sept. The same to the 
same, 504, n.; recommending an 
old servant for the relief which 
he deserves, 
1586. 16 Oct. The same to Dr. 
AVier, 517 ; Sidney is dying, and 
begs the doctor to come to him 
speedily ; dead or alive, he will 
not be ungrateful. 
Lewis, the Elector Palatine, 135, 

138. 
Lewis William, of Nassau, Count, j oins 
Sidney and Norris in the attack of 
Zutphen, 564. 
Lichtenstein, Henry, Baron of, in Eng- 
land, and kindly treated by Sidney, 
181. 
Lincoln, Earl of, 54. 
Lorraine, Sidney in, 61. 
Love's Labour's Lost anticipated, 229. 
Low Countries. See Netherlands. 



Ludlow, Sir Henry Sidney's residence 

at, 18, 51, 52, 358, 359. 
Lutherans, the, 13.5, 139. 
Lyly, John, his career, 323 ; his style 

of writing, 231 ; Euphues, 323, 324, 

343, 344. 



M. 



MacCarthy, Sir Cormach McTigh, 119. 
Madox, Griffin, Sidney's attendant, 69, 

120, 521, 531. 
Mahometan Struggle in Europe, 84, 85. 
Maritime power, the surest source of 

greatness to England, 436. 
Margaret of Anjou, wife of Henry of 

Navarre, 56 ; her opinion of her 

brother, the Duke of Anjou, 308. 
Marlowe, Christopher, compared with 

Sidney, 419. 
Marriages : — 

1577. Mary Sidney to the Earl of 
Pembroke, 161. 

1578. Countess of Essex to the Earl 
of Leicester, 203, 204. 

1580. Penelope Devereux to Lord 

Robert Rich, 286-288. 
1583. Frances Walsingham to Sir 
Philip Sidney, 377-381. 

Marriage projects : — 

Queen Elizabeth and the Duke of 
Anjou, 53, 243-246, 251-259, 294, 
295, 305. 
Anne CecU and Philip Sidney, 31, 36, 

38. 
Penelope Devereux and Philip Sid- 
ney, 108, 129, 133, 283-286. 

Mary, Queen of England, her treatment 
of the Sidneys, 9 ; decay of learning 
at the universities in her day, 24. 

Mary, Queen of Scotland; her plots 
and punishment, 449. 

Masques, Elizabethan, Deep Desire, by 
Churchvard (]), 1 01 ; Lady of the May, 
by Sidney, 199, 229. 

Massacre of St. Bartholomew, 57-59. 

Maurice of Nassau, Count, with Sidney 
at Flushing, 479; projects the cap- 
ture of Axel, 495, which he effects 
with Sidney's aid, 496, 497. 

Maximilian the Second, Emperor of 
Germany, Sidney at his court, 64; 
and at his opening of the Bohemian 
Diet, 141 ; his death, 134 ; Sidney's 
embassage of condolence thereupon, 
134, 135, 146, 147. 

Medici, Catharine de'. See Catharine. 

Meleager, a Latin play acted before 
Sidney, 301. 



INDEX. 



551 



Menin, leader of the deputation from 
the Netherlands (1585), 456. 

Middelburg, entertainment at, 480 ; 
Sidney at, 481, 485. 

Mildmay, Sir Walter, Speech in the 
Parliament of 1581 about Papists and 
rebels, 292. 

Molineus, Edmund, Sir H. Sidney's 
secretary, 357; Philip's injustice to, 
198, 199 ; services to the family, 209- 
211, 315; his praise of Sir Henry, 
493, and of Lady Mary Sidney, 494. 

Montemayor's Diana, 325. 

Mornay, Philip du Plessis, friend of 
Sidney and Lauguet, and secretary to 
Henry of Navarre; at Paris, 57, 303; 
ambassador to England, 184; Sidney, 
godfather to his daughter, 200 ; 
Languet's last message to, 303 ; cor- 
respondence with Sidney about 
foreign politics, 422, 473. 

Mornay, Madame, Sidney's acquaintance 
v^ith, 200 ; Languet's last nurse, 303 ; 
her worth, 303. 

Music, Sidney learns a little, 73 ; but 
not enough to entertain him, 278. 



N. 



Nash, Thomas, ridicule of English 
hexameters, 241 ; praise of Sidney, 
413. 

Naval power, the surest stay of English 
greatness, 436. 

Netherlands, The, under Alva, 83, 86 
(1574-5); under Don John of Austria, 
152, 153 (1577-8); under the Duke 
of Parma, 429, 430 (1578-1586); 
Casimir, Queen Elizabeth's lieutenant 
in, 204, 213, 214 (1578); Duke of 
Anjou's arrival, 309, 310 (1581-1583) ; 
his conduct, 423, 425 ; death of 
William of Orange, 427, 428 (1584); 
subsequent disaster's, 429, 453; aid 
sought from France, 454 (1585) ; from 
England, 453, 455 ; English treaty 
of alliance, 456, 457, 474 ; tardy and 
disastrous diplomacy. Queen Eliza- 
beth's proclamation of war, 474 ; 
Sidney and Leicester sent over, 475- 
479; Leicester's policy (1586), 483, 
484; Sidney's tactics, 481, 485-487; 
unproductive warfai-e, 491; capture 
of Axel, 495-498 ; battle of Zutphen, 
503-506 ; Sidney lost to the Nether- 
lands, 507 ; result of Leicester's 
leadership, 507, 508. 

Newfoundland visited by Gilbert and 
Raleigh, 370. 



New- Year's gifts to Queen Elizabeth 

from Sidney, 183, 212, 251, 283, 363 ; 

from others, 182-184, 212, 213, 307, 

308. 
Norfolk, Duke of, his rebellion and 

punishment, 53. 
North- West Passage sought for, 176, 



0. 

O'Mailey, Grainore, an Irish she-Cap- 
tain, 127. 

O'Neil, Shane, rebellion in Ireland, 11- 
14; his head "pickled in a pipkin," 
and lodged on Dublin Castle, 14, 355. 

Orange, William of. See William. 

Ordnance, Mastership of the, held 
jointly by Sidney and his uncle 
Warwick, 446. 

Ordnance stores, Sidney's watch over, 
447, 448. 

Ormond, Earl of. See Butler. 

Outlandish English, 231, 232. 

Oxford, Eai'l of. See Vere. 

Oxford University, the Queen's visit to, 
25; great plague at, 43; Sidn'ey's 
training at Christchurch, 23, 33 ; his 
subsequent visit, 301 ; lamentation 
at his death, 534, 535. 



P. 



Padua, Sidney at, 73, 77, 79. 

Page, the printer of The Gating Qalf, 
240, n. 

Palamon and Arcite, Edwards's play of, 
25, 406. 

Palatinate, troubles in the, 135, 139, 
148. 

Papists, severe treatment of, in Eng- 
land, 293, 442. 

Paris, Sidney at, 55-61. 

Parliament of 1581, Sidney's career in 
the, 291-294. 

Parliament of 1584-5, Sidney's share 
in the, 440-444. 

Parma, Alexander Farnese, Duke of, 
career and work in the Netherlands, 
429, 430, 491, 492, 

Patent, granting lands in America to 
Sidney, 367 (1583) ; appointing him 
joint master of the Ordnance, 446 
(1585) ; naming him Governor of 
Flushing and the Rammekins, 475 
(1585). 

Paul Veronese, Sidney's friend, 73, 78 ; 
paints his portrait, 79. 



552 



INDEX. 



Paul's wharf, Sir H. Sidney's house at, 
116. 

Paynter's Palace of Pleasure, 45, 468. 

Peckham, Sir George, a promoter of 
American colonization ; to that end 
petitions the Queen, 369 ; and obtains 
a transfer of Sidney's grant of land, 
372, 373 

Pembroke, Countess and Earl of. See 
Herbert, Mary and Henry. 

Penshurst granted to Sir William 
Sidney, 3 ; Ben Jonson's description 
of, 1, 2. 

Philip II. of Spain, Philip Sidney 
named after, 9; his great and evil 
influence in Europe, 144, 145, 426, 
433, 435 ; Sidney's opposition to it, 
435-437. 

Philosophy, Sidney's study of, 76, 227, 
228 ; its inferioiity to poetry, 389- 
391. 

Piers Plowman's Vision, 411. 

Plessis Mornay, Philip du. See Mor- 
nay. 

Pleurisy, Sidney ill with the, 81. 

Plymouth, Sidney at, 467-469. 

Poesie, Sidney's Defence of, 383-404. 

Poetics, J. C. Scaliger's, 383, 384. 

Portrait of Sidney, by Paul Veronese, 
79-92. 

Prague, Sidney at, 90, 141. 

Presburg, Sidney at, 65. 

Printing-houses in old times, 61. 

Pugliano, Peter, teaches Sidney horse- 
manship, 89. 

Puritan opposition to poetry, 384. 

Puritanism in parliament, 442. 

R. 

Raleigh, Sir Walter, early career, 441, 
370 ; his attempted colony of Vir- 
ginia, 441 ; its failure, 470. 

Rammekins, the treaty about, 474 ; its 
value in the Netherlands, 477 ; Philip 
Sidney appointed governor, 475 ; 
entrusts its keeping to his brother 
Robert, 478. 

Ramus murdered at Paris, 228 ; Sid- 
ney's appreciation of his books, 228 ; 
translated by Banosius, 228, and 
William Temple, 475. 

Rlietorique, Fraunce's Arcadian, 418. 

Metoriqiie, Wilson's Arte of, 231-383, 

Rich, Lady. See Devereux, Penelope. 

Rich, Lord Robert, 286 ; married to 
Penelope Devereux, 287. 

Romance -writing bv Sidney, 322-348 ; 
by others, 324, 325. 

Rome, political state of, 433. 



Rotterdam, Sidney at, 485, 486. 
Russel, Sir William, Sidney's friend, 
486, 506; Sidney's bequest to, 521. 



Sackville, Thomas, Lord Buckhurst, 
187; T?oe Mirror of Magistrates, 226, 
399; Gorhoduc, 226, 400. 

Saffron Walden, Sidney at, 201, 233. 

Saint Bartholomew, massacre of, 57-60. 

Sannazzaro, 324, 399 ; his Arcadia, 324. 

Sarpi, Peter, 72. 

Scaliger, J. C, Poetics, 383, 384. 

Scottis Poesie, King James the VL's 
Treatise of the Airt of, 405. 

Scottish Politics, 449-452. 

Sea, England should be mistress of the, 
436. 

Shepheard's Calendar, Spenser's, 236, 
337, 399, 405. 

Shrewsbury, Camden's account of, 18, 
n. ; Sidney's visit to, 51 (1572 ?-). 

Shrewsbury School, Sidney at, 18. 

Sidney, Ambrozia, Philip's younger 
sister, 52 ; her death, 92 ; Queen 
Elizabeth's letter of condolence to 
Sir H. Sidney, 110. 

Sidney, Elizabeth, Sir Philip's daugh- 
ter. Queen Elizabeth's godchild, 471 
(1585); her father's bequest to, 520 
(1586) ; married to Roger Manners, 
fifth Earl of Rutland, 541 (1600); 
her death without issue, 541 (1615). 

Sidney, Lady Frances, Sir Philip's wife, 
378 (1583); at Flushing, 489, 490 
(1586); at Arnheim, in attendance 
on her dying husband, 513 ; her own 
consequent misfortune, 526 ; her 
husband's bequest, 520; her later 
history, 373, 541. 

Sidney, Sir Henry, son of Sir William, 
of Penshurst, 3 (1529) ; brought up 
in company with Edward VI.; a 
gentleman of the royal bed-chamber, 
knight, ambassador, royal cypherer, 
5 ; marriage (1552), 6 ; at Edward 
VL's death-bed, 6; under Queen 
Mary, 8 ; under Queen Elizabeth, 
10; Lord President of Wales, 10 
(1560); a K.G., 11; at Newhaven, 
(1562); First Lord Deputy of Ire- 
land, (1565); conquered O'lSTeil, 11- 
17, 355 ; at Oxford (1568), made 
M.A., 26 ; second time Lord Deputy 
of Ireland, 27-44, 355 (1568-1571); 
over-worked and ill-used, 37, 46 ; 
quells the Butler rebellion; re- 
turns to England, 46, 109; refuses 
the oflEer of a peerage, because too 



INDEX. 



553 



poor, 47,48, 109 ; at Ludlow, 51, 52; 
at Kenilworth, 101 (1575); at 
Chartley, 109; sent to Ireland as, 
a third time, Lord Deputy, 111 ; 
his discredit with the Qaeen (1577), 
161-166; defended at Court, by 
Waterhouse, 166, 167; and by his 
son Philip, 167-175; his fresh trou- 
bles with the Qaeen (1578), 191, 197, 
205; returns to England, 209, 211; 
his New- Year's gifts to the Qaeen, 
212 (1579) ; his visit to his daughter 
at Wilton, and the Qaeen's com- 
plaints thereat, 264 (1580) ; his dis- 
satisfaction with his son Robert, 275 ; 
and high praise of Philip, 279 ; pro- 
poses to Philip to go to Ireland with 
him, 353 (1582); employs him in 
the vindication of his rights, 360, 
361; distress at the refusal of his 
demands, 361 ; his position in\7ales,| 
359 (1583); hardly dealt with by' 
the Queen, grievously in debt,' 
*' toothless and trembling," and pre- i 
maturely old, 359 ; his death and' 
curious burial, 492, 493 (1536) ; his| 
worth and work, 355-359, 493. j 

Sidney, Lady Mary, daughter of thej 
Duke of Northumberland, and wife of^ 
Sir Henry Sidney, 6 (1552); attends^ 
Queen Elizabeth when ill with the| 
small-pox, and thence herself catches 
the disease, 50-59 (1562) ; goes to 
Ireland, 11 (1565); is grievously 
sick there, 16 (1572) ; on the 2ad 
May writes a letter to Lord Barghley 
about the peerage offered to her] 
husband, 48; at Kenilworth (1575),| 
104,71.; at Court, 116; her troubles,! 
117-119; some cause for satisfactioa,! 
119; New- Year's presents to the! 
Queen (1578), 183; help given to her| 
husband, 197, 209, 211 ; the Queen's! 
treatment of her (1583), 359; her| 
death, 494 (1586). | 

Sidney, Mary, elder daughter of Sir, 
Henry. See Herbert, Mary. | 

Sidney, Sir Philip, eldest son of Siri 
Henry and Lady Mary Sidney, and! 
through them of ancient and honour- 
able parentage, 4, 7, 8. 

Events of his Life : — 

1554. Born at Penshurst, 1, 9. 

1564. Sent to Shx'ewsbury School; work 
there, 18-19. ' 

1568. Removed to Christ Church| 
College, Oxford, about Midsum-i 
mer, 23, 26 ; at Ludlow with his 
father in August, 27 ; working, 29. j 



1569. With the Cecils at Hampton 
Court in January, 29 ; his projected 
marriage with Anne Cecil approved 
by his father, 31 ; objected to by- 
Cecil, 32 ; encouraged by Leicester, 
32; negotiations, 36, 38; abrupt 
ending, 39. 

1569-1571. Philip at Oxford, study- 
ing closely, 33 ; writing about work, 
34, 35 ; about Dr. Thornton, his 
tutor, 40 ; ill, 39 ; his tutors, 33, 40, 
41 ; his friends, 41-43 ; the plague 
drives him off, 43 ; he spends a year 
either at Cambridge, 44; or, more 
likely, with his parents at Ludlow, 
45, 51, 52 ; entertained at Shrews- 
bury, 61, n. 

1572. In May visits Paris, 54 ; and 
forms the acquaintance of Walsiug- 
ham, 55 ; stays three months in 
Paris, enjoying its gaieties, and is 
made a gentleman of King Charles's 
bedchamber, 57 ; witnesses the mas- 
sacre of St. Bartholomew, 58-60 ; 
leaves for Germany in September, 
61. 

1573. At Frankfort, 61 ; where he 
meets Hubert Languet, 62 ; who 
takes him to Vienna, 64 ; thence he 
goes to Presburg, Qo ; and after- 
wards to Venice, QQ, 67. 

1574. Visits Padua in Jan.; is in Venice 
by February, 79 ; and shortly after in 
Genoa, 79, 80 ; in Padua again in 
April, 79 ; and in Venice throughout 
Jane and July ; wishes to go to Rome, 
80, and Constantinople, 88. In 
Italy he studies astronomy, 73, 75 ; 
a little music, 73 ; geometry, 75 ; 
philosophy, 76 ; Latin and Greek 
composition, 73-76 ; and Italian his- 
tory and literature, 74. Languet 
complains that he works too hard, 
76, 77. He also keeps careful watch 
on political occurrences, 83-85, 87, 
88 ; forms friendship with Tinto- 
retto, 72, 78 ; Paul Veronese, 73, 78, 
79 ; the Count of Haunau, 79, 93; 
and others, 71 ; in July attacked 
with pleurisy, 81 ; soon afterwards, 
quitting Italy, he visits Poland, 88 ; 
and then winters at Vienna, studying 
horsemanship, 89. 

1575. And classical literature, 115; in 
Feb. he goes to Prague, 90, 141; and 
then returns home byway of Dresden, 
Heidelberg, Strasburg, and Frank- 
fort, where he parts from Languet, 91 ; 
ill at Antwerp, and does not reach 



554.1 



INDEX. 



London till olst May, 93 ; at Kenil- 
! worth in July, 96-103; at Chartley 
in August, 107-109; in London by 
November, 112; often at Court, 
119-121. 

1576. Often also with the Earl of Essex 
at Durham House, 122, 123 ; marriage 
between him and the Earl's daughter, 
Penelope, is now thought of, 124. 

In July he is with his father in Ire- 
land, 125 ; sees Irish life, 126, 127; 
soon returns to England, where his 
purposed marriage — urged by Essex 
on his death-bed in August, 129 — is 
everywhere expected, 132, 133. 

1577. In February he is sent as 
special ambassador to Germany, 
137 ; at Heidelberg he confers with 
Prince Casimir, 138-140; and then, 
after visiting Rodolph II. at Prague, 
and ui'ging him to forbearance and 
liberality, 140-147; returns to speak 
with Lewis, the Elector Palatine, 
148; disheartened at the state of 
Protestant Europe, 149, 150 ; Lan- 
guet often with him, 151, 152; his 
mysterious proposal to Sidney, 151, n. 
On his way home Sidney meets Don 
John of Austria, 153 ; and wins the 
friendship of William of Orange, 
154 ; and of his wife Charlotte, 155; 
of whose child he is godfather, 156 ; 
in London by June, and much 
praised for his mission and his con- 
duct abroad, 157. 

In July he visits the Countess of 
Pembroke at Wilton, 161 ; in Sep- 
tember he hurries to Court, because 
of the Queen's anger with his father, 
167; in Sir Henry Sidney's defence he 
prepares a series of very convincing 
arguments, 168-174 : which are ap- 
proved by all, 174 ; and for' a 
time successful with Elizabeth, 175. 
In September he writes to Lan- 
guet about Frobisher's voyage, and 
supposed discovery of gold, 176, 
177; is tempted to join in Fro- 
bisher's search, but remains at Court 
serving his Queen and family, 180. 

1678. On New Yeai-'s day he ex- 
changes presents with the Queen, 
183,184; butsoon^ — dissatisfied with 
courtier life, 188 — he longs for more 
real woi-k, 190: either for soldier- 
ship in Holland, or for adventure in 
distant seas, 191, 194, 200. During 
the summer he affords much help to 
his father, now again in trouble, 



194-197, 205, 206, 211. In May he 
writes The Lady of the May, a masque 
to be performed at Wanstead, 199, 
200, 229, 230 ; on 1st June he stands 
godfather toMornay's daughter, 200; 
from the Queen he receives some 
appointment, 200; with her he goes 
in July to Audley End, 201 ; here he 
meets Gabriel Harvey, 202, 233; who 
makes him the hero of a Latin poem, 
233, n. ; and a friend of Spenser, 234. 

1579. On 1st Jan. he again exchanges 
gifts with the Queen ; helps to en- 
tertain Casimir and Languet during 
their visit to England, 213-217; the 
increasing irksomeness to him of 
Court life, 219, 220; for relief he 
turns to literary work, and to the 
society of literary friends, hence he 
forms the Areopagus, 237 ; and at- 
tempts to found a new school of 
poetry, 237-242. 

Towards the end of the year he is 
prominent in his opposition to the 
Queen's proposed marriage, 245 : 
in September quarrels with the Earl 
of Oxford, 247-251 ; and thereby is 
led to Etill firmer resistance to the 
Queen's marriage, 251. 

1580. In Dec. or Jan. he writes her along 
and earnest letter about it, 252-259; 
that being ill received, 259 .274, he 
retires to Wilton and its neighbour- 
hood, 262-274 ; gaining much from 
his sister's company, 265, 267, pro- 
bably helping her to translate TIte 
Psalms, 268 ; certainly beginning 
The A rcadia, 270. At Court again in 
Oct. 275-279 ; meeting with many 
temptations and opportunities of 
misusing his energy, the chief being 
connected with Penelope Devereux, 
now Lady Rich, 283-291. 

1581. On New Year's day he makes 
three presents to the Queen, 283; in 
parliament during the spring, 291- 
294 ; in May he joins in a grand 
assault of arms, 295-299; in Octo- 
ber he writes to Lord Burghley 
about some impropriations which 
he seeks, 301 ; and in November to 
the Queen about a cypher prepared 
for her, 302 ; is at Wilton in Dec, 306. 

1582. In February, he goes, with 
others, to attend on the Duke of 
Anjou in the Netherlands, 309-311; 
is in London by the end of March, 
311 ; his life as a courtier, 312-329 ; 
in April his father urges him to go 



INDEX. 



555 



to Ireland, 353; decliniDg tliis, he 
labours hard, though without effect, 
for the advancement of Sir H. Sid- 
ney's fortunes, 360, 361 ; asks for a 
seat in the Council, 365 ; at Wilton 
in December, seeking absence from 
Court at Christmas, 362 ; this not 
granted, 363. 

1583. At Court on New Year's day, 363 ; 
perhaps about then the Queen gives 
him a lock of her hair, 363 ; on 8 
January she knights him, 364 ; on 
27 January, and again on 22 July, 
he seeks in vain for appointment as 
Master of the Ordnance, 366, 367 ; 
receives a grant of land in Ame- 
rica early in the year, 367; not 
able, however, to use it, 372 ; and 
therefore hands over the privilege to 
Sir George Peckham, 372, 373; in 
March, or soon after, he is married to 
Fi-ances, daughter of Sir Francis Wal- 
singham, 377, 378 ; the next year beiug 
spent in quiet married life, 381, 382. 

1584. His interest in politics, 421 ; 
appointed ambassador to France, 
425 ; preparations are made, but the 
journey is prevented, 427. Beiug 
greatly troubled by the aspect of 
affairs, 427, 428, 430-434, he urges 
the bold and direct assailing of 
Spanish power, 435-437; on the 23rd 
of November he enters the new par- 
liament, 440 ; and is member of 
vax'ious committees, the chief being 
about Ealeigh's Virginian colony, 440. 

1585. On the 18th February he is ap- 
pointed to confer with the Lords 
about Papists and Puritans, 442. 
His watch over the Ordnance stores, 
447, and interest in Scottish politics, 
450; he urges the bestowment of a 
pension on James of Scotland, 451 ; 
on 21st July is united with the Earl 
of Wai'wick in the mastership of the 
Ordnance, 446 ; in the spring he re- 
solved on attacking the Spanish colo- 
nies in the West Indies, 459; his 
plans matured in the summer, 460- 
463 ; hindered by the war in the 
Netherlands, now determined upon, 
457; promise of employment therein, 
457; but, hearing that it is to be 
withheld, 466, he goes to Plymouth 
to embark with Drake, 467 ; Drake's 
treachery and Sidney's scheming, 
468, 469; the Queen calls him back 
to Court, 469; appointed governor of 
Flushing on the 7th November, 475- 



477; he assumes office on the 21st, 
478, 479; at Middelburg with the 
Earl of Leicester, 480 ; their oppo- 
site sorts of leadership, 481-483. 

1586. His defence of Flushing, 484, 
500-502; military plans, 485, 486, 
495 ; zeal and its reward, 487-490 ; 
takes Axel in July, 495-497; with 
Count Hohenlo, 499 ; the investment 
of Doesburg, 503; the battle of Zut- 
phen, 504-506; Sidney's death-wound, 
506; his brave bearing, 507; con- 
veyed to Arnheim, 507; his sickness, 
509-524 ; his death, 525 ; private and 
public grief, 526, 527, 533, 540. 

1587. His burial, 527, 530-533; Lis 
will. 519-522. 

His Writings : — 

T?te Lady of the May, a masque, 199 ; 
its story, 229 ; its satire, 230 ; its 
faults, 199, 233. 

The A rcadia, written at the Countess 
of Pembroke's wish, dedicated to 
her, 270, 271, and corrected by her, 
339, 342 ; much of it composed at 
Wilton, the rest at Court, 322 ; its 
forerunners, 324, 325 ; its story, 
325-342 ; its faults of design, 342 ; 
of execution, 342; compared with 
Euphues, 343, 344; its indication 
of Sidney's change of thought 
while writing it, 345-348. 

Astrophel and Stella, its origin, 315 ; 
its models, 348-350 ; its faults iu 
style, 348; in subject, 352; its 
merits, 348; quotations, sonnets, 
i. 3 14 ; ii. 109 ; xi. 285 ; xviii. 319 ; 
xxiii. 318; xxv. 287; xxvii. 317; 
xxxiii. 315; xxxv. 316; xxxviii, 
316 ; xli. 299, and Iv. 317. 

The Defense of Poesie, its suggesters, 
383, 384 ; its theme ; introduction, 
384 ; definition of poetry, 387 ; its 
superiority to all other branches 
of knowledge, 388; the merits of 
its several parts, 394; the poet's 
greatness, 395; objections to 
poetry answered, 396 ; criticism of 
English poetry and the drama, 398. 

Miscellaneous Verse, quotations, 133, 
219, 282, 288, 289, 290. 

Translations : with the Countess of 
Pembroke — The Psalms of David, 
268-270 : with Arthur Goldmg— 
The Trewnesse of the Christian Reli- 
gion, its character, 408-410; its 
theological value, 410, 411. 
Characteristics, of body, 312, 313; of 
mind; "an excellent wit," 312; a 



556 



INDEX. 



hard scholar, 19, 33, 76, 77 ; had 
" too little fun in his nature," 76 ; 
never so happy as when at hard 
work, 77; seldom very merry, 92; 
disliked noisy life, 273; " offc most 
alone in others' company," 317; "a 
sou of excellent good proof," 359 ; 
"a very formular for all well- 
disposed young gentlemen," 279; 
hardly able to speak scornfully, 
415; not apt to discredit others, 
468; yet sometimes hasty and hot- 
tempered, 70, 198 ; thought it 
always best to do great things first, 
and let them be talked about after- 
wards, 464. 
Sidney, Robert, second son of Sir H. 
Sidney, afterwards second Earl of 
Leicester; baptized at Penshurst, 52; 
at school at Ewelme, 125 ; studying 
on the continent, 221, 306; serving 
under Philip in the Netherlands, 478, 
613 ; later career, 540 ; Philip's be- 
quest to him, 520. 
Sidney, Thomas, SirH.Sidney's youngest 
son, 52 ; serving in the Netherlands, 
613 ; Philip's bequest to him, 520. 
Sinecure/ worth a £100 a-year, held by 
Sidney, afterwards by George Her- 
bert, 302. 
Small-pox, Queen Elizabeth's attack of, 
infects Lady Mary Sidney, 50; the 
Duke of Aujou's, 55. 
Soldiers, Sidney's care for his, 481, 482. 
Sonnets, Sidney's, 350-352. 
Sonnet- writing in England, 348-350. 
Spectacles and Shows : — 

1564. Queen Elizabeth at Oxford, 25. 
1572. Paris festivities, 56. 
1675. Kenil worth shows and festi- 
vities, 96. 
1578. The Lady of the May, at Wan- 
stead, 199. 
1578. Cambridge loyalty at Audley 
End, 201. 

1581. The Four Foster Children of 
Desire, and The Castle of Perfect 
Beauty, 295. 

1582. Entertainments at Antwerp, 
309. 

Speeches, Sidney's, before the Emperor 
Rodolph II., 142-145; to his troops 
before Axel, 496. 

Spenser, Edmund, early life, 235, 44 ; 
friendship with Sidney, 236, to whom 
he dedicates The Shepheard's Calender, 
237; mistaken views about poetry, 
239, 240 ; abandoned, 241, 242 ; The 
Faerie Queene, 242; Stemmata Dud- 



leianUf 271 ; secretary to Lord Grey 
of Wilton, 272 ; his debt to Sidney, 
413, 414; his praise of him, 313, 314-, 
413,540; of the Countess of Pem- 
broke, 265, 266 ; of Penelope Deve- 
reux, 108. 

Stafford, Sir Edward, ambassador in 
Paris, Sidney's friend, 421, 431. 

Stanley, Sir William, 486. 

Steenbergen, Sidney's designs against, 
485. 

Strasburg, Sidney at, 61, 91. 

Stubbs, author of The Oaping OuZf, 
246, n. 

Surrey, The Earl of, likeness to Sidney, 
349 ; his translations, 268 ; his sou- 
nets, 348. 



Temple, William, translator of the 
Dialectics of Ramus, dedicated to 
Sidney, 475 ; Sidney's private secre- 
tary in the Netherlands, 475. 

Theobalds, Lord Burghley's residence, 
199. 

Theology, Sidney's, 410, 411. 

Thornton, Dr. Thomas, Sidney's tutor 
at Oxford, 33, 40. 

Tintoretto, Sidney's friend, 72, 78. 

Tower of London, Sidney's visit to, 
447. 

Translations common in Queen Eliza- 
beth's day, 268. 

Travelling, Sidney's remarks on, 222 — 
225. 



U. 



Universities, the, under Mary and 

Elizabeth, 24. 
" Urania," the Countess of Pembroke, 

Spenser's praise of, 266. 



Venice, in her glory^^ 70, 71 ; Sidney at, 
70, 79. 

Vere, Edward de. Earl of Oxford, 
married to Anne Cecil, 39; in attend- 
ance on the Queen, 187 ; Harvey's 
verses on, 240; his quarrel with 
Sidney, 242-251 ; his project to 
murder Sidney, 250. 

Vienna, Sidney at. 64, 88, 89. 

Vindicice Contra Tyrannos, Languet's or 
Mornay's, 62, n. 

Virginia, Raleigh's attempted coloniza- 
tion of, 444, 445,46.3. 



INDEX. 



557 



w. 



"Wales, Sir Henry Sidney's serYices in, 
18, 358, 359. 

Walsingham, Frances, daughter of Sir 
Francis ; Sidney's liking for, 306 ; 
her marriage to him, 373, 377, 378. 
See Sidney, Lady Frances. 

Walsingham, Sir Francis, Principal 
Secretary of State ; early career, 55, 
56 ; friendship with Sidney, 56, 307 ; 
reception at Court, 188; Ambassador 
to France, 55, 56, 305 ; to Scotland, 
450 ; sympathy for the cause of the 
Netherlands, 428, 438, 454, 455, 465, 
466 ; his high esteem for Sidney, 
529 ; management of his burial, 528, 
529 ; his place among statesmen, 465. 

Wanstead, 199, 203, 378,w. 

War, Sidney's playing at, 299 ; his 
earnest practise of it, 497, 504-505. 

Warfare, just and unjust, 207. 

Waterhouse, Edward, Sir Henry Sid- 
ney's secretary, 38, 357 ; services on 
his behalf, 45, 166, 167; negotiations 
for the marriage of Philip with Pene- 
lope Devereux, 133; friendship be- 
tween him and Philip, 174, 180, 197. 

Watson, Dr., Bishop of Winchester, 61. 

Webbe's Discourse of Enylish Foetne, 
405. 

Wechel, Andrew, the printer; enter- 
tains Sidney at Antwerp, 61. 

Wentworth, William, Burghley's son- 
in-law and Sidney's friend, died of 
the plague, 359. 

West Indies, the Spanish attacked by 
Drake, 449 ; Sidney's plan against, 
459-463. 

Whitgift, Archbishop, 443. 



Wier, Doctor John, Sidney's letter 
to, written a few hours before his 
death, 517. 

Will, Sidney's, 519-^522, 528, 529. 

William the Silent, Prince of Orange, 
description of, 154 ; marriage with 
Charlotte of Bourbon, 155; friend- 
ship with Sidney, 156 ; great praise 
of Sidney to Queen Elizabeth, 220, 
221 ; a mourner at Languet's burial, 
304; attempted murder of him, 424 ; 
his assassination, 427 ; effect of his 
death upon European politics, 427- 
429. 

Wilson, Thomas, Dean of Durham and 
Secretary of State; his Arte of Rhe- 
torique, 231, 383 ; on outlandish 
English, 231, 233. n. 

Wilton, PhiUp at, 161, 263, 274, 306, 
322, 362. 

Windsor, Lord, in an assault of arms 
with Sidney, 295-299. 

Wotton, Sir Edward, Sidney's felloAV- 
student at Vienna, 89 ; ambassador 
in Scotland, 450; wise diplomacy 
with James VI., 451, 452 ; Sidney's 
bequest, 521. 

Wyatt, Sir Thomas, the elder; his 
trauslations, 268 ; his sonnets, 348. 

Wyclif 's Trialogus, 411. 



Yoycliurch, The Countess of Pembroke s, 

417. 



Zutphen, the battle of, 503-506 ; Sid- 
ney's death-wound received in, 506. 



THE END. 



BRADBURY AXD EVANS, PRINTERS, ■VVHITEFR1AK3. 



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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



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